Lost Across the Stars
by Arual-san
Summary: Sequel to The Alter-Ego Revisited. Beast Boy has gone missing after the events at the academy. The other Titans search across the galaxy for their lost friend while the youngest Titan has a solo adventure of his own.
1. Chapter 1

Before anyone can say it first, _yes _I know that title is kinda cheesy but that's one of my weak points in writing. Whatever, it fits so I'm sticking with it. I accept constructive criticism but I don't have nerves of steel so please mind your manners and don't go Simon Cowell on me.

To BB/Terra and BB/Raven fans, sorry but I support neither so I'm pairing Beast Boy with an OC. It's fine if you don't like her but please don't diss her solely because it messes with your pairing ship. Thanks!

First chapter dedication to my awesome 100th reviewer of The Alter-Ego Revisited, Star of Airdrie!

Arual-san

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The middle section of the T-Ship cut through the clouds high above like they were little pockets of mist and there hadn't been any other traffic in the way of planes or birds for a good hour.

Since he'd made sure beforehand to say goodbye to Batgirl before leaving, Robin only felt that Alfred had deserved the same and he'd contacted him over the ship's radio. But that was several minutes gone by and presently only two colors existed in that very high altitude: the bits of indigo sky and the misty clouds covered all the rest both above and below.

From the cramped seat in back Beast Boy gave an animal-like snore.

"My sentiments exactly," Robin murmured even though he'd be received with no reply.

Sure the deep shade of indigo, the twinkling stars and clouds would be a breathtaking sight to any that had not flown in a jet before but those same things continued to run on a never-ending film strip and the clouds didn't seem inclined to thin out any time soon.

Robin flipped the radio on like he had on his previous trip, not caring to adjust the volume when Beast Boy could sleep through a Level Five tornado and wake up hours later bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

He continued to man the jet while from the back "Beast Boy" really wasn't sleeping at all, just waiting in way unmoving and with such endless patience that it was uncharacteristic of him.

The android had his orders from above but still it would have been far too easy for to unhook his seatbelt, come up from behind the pilot and hook it around his neck. An android's life was nothing but to take down the younger half of the Dynamic Duo was a feat so many villains across the galaxy could only dream of. If Robin couldn't breathe he couldn't fly and the droid glanced to the nearest mountain with the thought of how little a dent in it the explosion of the jet would make.

It would be quite an ironic way to send the boy into the afterlife, thinking his friend had betrayed him, never knowing why.

So easy…

Metal digits disguised beneath green skin itched to do it and they twisted the belt in his palms. He neared Robin with cruel desire in his artificial eyes and the boy never thought to look up from the dials or away from the night skies.

He pulled the belt taut. It could've all been over in one swift movement.

But the android returned the belt to his side. Its AI was a strong force but its programming had been wired to always be stronger and it could never disobey orders. As it was there was one Titan down. It was not cursed with the human fault of impatience and so could pass this opportunity to fell another Titan in favor of tumbling the whole team at once like a stack of cards.

Beast Boy's presence so close behind Robin would be noticed in only a couple seconds the way a person's extrasensory perceptions worked and the android was prepared, making its presence known before Robin could detect that it was really awake.

"Could you change the radio station?" the android asked, putting a sugary sense of innocence into Beast Boy's borrowed voice.

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It was well past three in the morning when the jet at last reached the familiar sights of the outer limits of Jump but the city did not welcome them back when all of its dark lumps and bumps of buildings invoked the image of a sleeping giant…a little giant anyway. Jump wasn't the largest city for the teenage superheroes to patrol, not when there were the big names of Metropolis, Central City and Gotham.

The dark buildings were indistinct but recognizable to a resident as the local pizza place or the dance club but no building was as familiar as the T-shaped one that stood alone on a tiny island on the bay.

"Home at last," Robin said as though he'd never thought he'd have missed that tower so much when the alternative had been the academy.

From behind, Beast Boy mimicked his smile and stretched it a little wider. He erased it from his face as soon as they'd landed in the garage and pulled it back into a grimace, like he was still feigning sickness and depression over the missing students on top of it.

"Do you think you can walk okay now?" Robin asked in concern, going straight to his friend instead of the luggage. "It's been a couple hours."

Beast Boy nodded and it was much too easy to fake Robin out with all information he had absorbed about the boy's real friend that had to be half a galaxy away by now. He pretended to be strong, knowing the Titan leader would eat that up, supporting himself on passing objects like a toddler learning to walk.

Robin retrieved the luggage but he still stayed in close range should anything happen.

They'd gotten home at a rather late time of the day and while sleeping hours didn't much matter for Cyborg, who only needed to recharge his battery pack, it wouldn't have been an ideal time to wake the girls when it could wait for morning. The boys retreated to their separate rooms for what was left of the night.

For a while Titan Tower was the same sleeping building as all the rest. The peace spanned for a good two and a half hours but, as though the city itself had only just become aware that its team was back up to full set of five again, the sirens went off for trouble.

Any normal teenager would have been exhausted going on only a couple hours of sleep but Robin was the first one out of his bedroom and into the hall like the fatigue had no claim over him whatever. Two of the Titans soon fell into line behind him.

"Robin, you have returned!" And with a skip in her step, Starfire hovered behind him and pulled him into a hug. He didn't let it slow his pace but still a warm smile came to his face and he let himself be held even in front of one of his guy friends.

"Hey, Star…"

"Aww, man, I gotta go back to being second in command again already?" Cyborg griped, his eyes rolling skyward. "Couldn't you have stopped some mad scientist in some city you passed along the way so Star and I could've had time to make that chili-cheese volcano that-"

"That was going to devour the unfortunate citizens of hot dog whom did not make proper sacrifice to their gods?"

"Yeah, that's the one, Star." His face suddenly turned goofy. "Gotta be some divine retribution if the hot-dog people are all disrespecting the volcano gods like that."

"I _don't_ want to see the den," Robin said in the mere thought of just the few things that Raven had described, how much of a wasteland it had to be at present. "I _really_ don't. Just know that once we get back you two are confined to that room until it's clean enough to eat nachos off the floor."

"_Man_, you only just got back and you're already barking out orders at us." Cyborg sighed now that the rules of the tower were back to normal. "How about "Nice to see you guys," or "I've got such awesome stories to tell 'bout my mission," or something?" Cyborg looked round when Robin was never the one to ask about stories. "Hey, where's B? He _was_ with you that whole time, wasn't he?"

"He's not in top form right now," responded Robin, leaving it at that at present. "I'm letting him take a break until he is. What about Raven?"

"Whew, girl's wiggin' out something fierce from all that overtime she's been putting in wanting to get away from us and all the _fun_ we were having. Rae's hours have been kinda weird lately so don't know if she's sleeping or what but if she's not responding to the sirens we'd better leave her alone."

"I will agree with Cyborg," Starfire pitched in a little timidly. "I would prefer to remain in good and working condition if at all possible."

Their voices traveled down the halls and Beast Boy listened behind the door as they grew further and further away. When he couldn't hear them anymore he switched on the intercom at the tower's front door to relay that they were gone and that he had free reign of the tower.

He left his room with a swagger in his step, far from the stiff models of early designs.

Metallic tendons pulled away on his forearm to reveal a screen that detailed the layout of the tower and he steered himself away the room he'd heard Starfire exiting from, her room just as useless as the real Beast Boy's. The first point of interest was of course Cyborg's room when the technological warehouse contained many similar blueprints to the android's own. They were similar but superior in several ways and with flashing eyes the droid scanned the print for the Sonic Cannon, committing it to memory.

"That would be a nice little accessory," he commented aloud, flexing his fingers where the cannon could be.

There were too many blueprints, sketches and notebooks to scan in the same way so the android detached a zip drive from one of his tendons and hooked it up to the motherboard. Cyborg's life's work would take hours to download and would most likely fill up more than one drive so the android set it to work and proceeded to Robin's crime lab to do the same to his computer.

He would be back to collect them again before either of them ever knew that they'd been hacked.

Unable of course to feign superpowers, the droid had had to work fast when he would only be granted sick time for so long. He only took care to thread past Raven's room lightly when at any moment her door could slide open.

He heard not a sound from her room, even with his extrasensory radar so much more sensitive to vibrations than a human ear, but the two birds of the Titans operated quietly and that could've meant that they were up to many different things other than sleeping.

Whatever it was she was up to, whether it was reading, sleeping or meditation, Raven felt no need to investigate the slight pair of footsteps that skipped past her door.

Everyone's room save hers was soon rigged with explosives under each of their mattresses. However, when they were all teenagers and their schedules were erratic sometimes with especially late nights, Robin rising much earlier than the others, Cyborg not really requiring sleep at all, it might've taken some doing getting the whole team in one place all at once to detonate the trigger.

There would only be one chance to pull this off so the android detached its full set of bombs and set about the tower planting them in the den, at the base of the tower and anywhere else he could think of that would make the most damage.

While he was at the base he removed and hid the keys to all of the vehicles. That took care of the non-flying Titans at least if they were ever to make it to the garage in one piece. The seeds were sown and his alibi would be set as soon as he returned to his room on the top level where he would remain for the rest of the day, that last day that the tower still remained standing.

When the android was only a fraction of the way up the stairs however its receptors suddenly picked up something that it should not have: a group of voices going off in mild annoyance about how their number was only supposed to be used for emergencies, how Old Mrs. Jenkins's cat getting stuck in a tree didn't qualify no matter how very tall and sinister-looking that tree was.

They'd returned far too early in the game and the android might have broken into a sweat had he had the required glands. He ascended the stairs with more speed than any human had and his feet barely disappeared to the next level before the Titans had gotten far enough into the entryway to spot him.

Though they were sure to have heard the tinkling echo of footsteps on the stairs, the android was out of their sight and it would've been easily assumed to be Raven. Still he knew better than to slow down when Starfire could simply forgo the stairs in eagerness to get back to her beauty sleep.

The droid was only familiar with the Titans through what limited memories he'd absorbed from Beast Boy but he'd managed to call that one on Starfire and she indeed flew past the steps to where her bed called so sweetly in the early morning.

Her voice loomed ever nearer, threatening to expose him for being up and about but Beast Boy's room was only a hallway away and once he passed through that door he'd be safe. It would be as if he'd never gotten up at all.

He rounded the final corner and barely came skidding to an ungraceful stop.

Raven stood alone an arm's length before him as though she was waiting for him. Her figure was small but her presence forced upon him so suddenly seemed to fill the whole of the hallway like a fog and bar his path.

The girl's feathers remained unruffled as she continued her steady pace down the hall and the only tick of expression that surfaced from her pale face was that an eyebrow rose a little higher on her forehead in distaste for him nearly plowing her over the way he had. Those mystic violet eyes pierced into the boy like she was piercing a hole through his body as he collected himself to continue to walk past her but Raven was the tower's expert at all the different variations of glares.

"Good morning," the android peaceably said to combat her glare.

She glared at him a few seconds longer before nodding it off and passing him by with a whish of her cloak. However the second after they passed each other was when Raven turned round like the crack of a whip and struck, blasting him up into the air in an orb of dark energy.

"You're _not_ him," she croaked, rotating the imposter in the air so she could glimpse his lying face.

While most of the android was paralyzed under her control, Raven felt a flash of anger that this imposter dared to look like the spitting image of her friend. She drew her hands back and slammed him into the sliding door of the den and the noise quickly drew the rest of the Titans.

"Rae, what are you doing!?" Cyborg was to the front of the pack at once. "Whatever B did _this_ time it's not bad enough to-!"

"Friend Raven, please do not injure him!"

But Starfire's words to restrain her simply passed straight over Raven's head like a gust of wind. The girl stormed into the den that was a wasteland of clutter and leftovers and she slammed the android into the wall again. "What are you!? Where is he!?"

"Get her off me!" Beast Boy yelled, his feet dangling uselessly. "She's crazy!"

"Raven, stop!" And Robin didn't just order her or try to reason with her like the others who remained tense and unsure. He jumped out and grabbed her wrist, pulled her back when her anger was carrying her off and away from anything else that wasn't that imposter in front of her. "Just calm down! What's going on!?"

"That_ thing_," Raven breathed out slowly, never taking her razor sharp gaze off of her captive, "is _not_ Beast Boy. Its mind is completely different."

There were a chorus of "Whats" from the three of them and suddenly their eyes of scrutiny refocused from Raven to Beast Boy.

"You're not really _believing _her, are you?" Beast Boy sputtered. "Her head has to be going all wonky from those psychic powers of hers, all those other auras and thoughts from the people in Jump, she can't take it! She's freaking out on me and you're going to take _her_ side!?"

Starfire appeared conflicted. "I do not wish to side between one friend and another. Is there no way to remedy this situation?"

"Of course there is," Cyborg said, stepping forward and pulling up the scanners on his arm. "Rae and I scanned Robin the exact same way when we thought he was working for Slade, only difference is Rae's scanner is permanently switched in the on position."

Once Cyborg switched on his own scanners, waved them over the android's signature and waited for the results, the android knew it would be caught in only seconds.

The Beast Boy imposter hung his head to a side and gave a wistful grin before directing his gaze to Robin.

"You know, Robin," he said in a way darker than the real Beast Boy could ever pull off and as he spoke his lips pulled back further than they ever should in a metallic grin, "you should really pay closer attention to your friends."

Raven had snagged the imposter so rapidly that she had unintentionally missed entrapping a couple of his fingers. That was all he needed to direct a raging spark of electricity from his circuits onto her.

The girl screamed, releasing him and dropping to the floor in pain. Starfire went to her at once when Robin momentarily froze, disbelieving what his eyes were telling him.

The imposter touched down with the grace of an athlete and its metallic appendages unsheathed.

"You had the rookie bots last time," he said with a poisonous grin. "I'm from the expensive line."﻿


	2. Chapter 2

I accidentally filed this new story in the crossovers section instead of just Teen Titans. My bad, it's been a while since I posted Chapter 1 of Alter-Ego. So I guess anyone just joining in now gets the two chapter thing again instead of just one for waiting so patiently. Read, review and all that jazz. :D

Arual-san

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"You had the rookie bots last time," he said with a poisonous grin. "I'm from the expensive line." And in the few seconds they had to react, Cyborg rushed the droid, Robin snapped out of his temporary freeze, but the droid was just a second faster and fired a laser beam from its palm straight at the girls at his feet.

Had he hit them both at once the damage to each might have been minimized but Starfire was closer and higher in that she was kneeling. It blasted her in the stomach and with enough force that she was expelled straight out of the window.

The glass provided little resistance and shattered into a thousand pieces and once it did, once that happened, Robin instinctively redirected his footing from the android to there.

"Starfire!"

That blast he had felt pulsing in heat waves in the air when it was fired and it had hit a vulnerable area on the girl. His imagination took him places he didn't want to go and he saw her broken body sprawled out at the base of the tower, just like so long ago when it had been two acrobats…

Robin had jumped onto the windowsill in a heartbeat and despite that he was a flightless bird his blood nearly urged him to jump off after her anyway. He could never let that happen again.

He looked to the ground far below and gratefully saw nothing that his nightmares suggested. Purple flashed from somewhere above and Robin saw Starfire floating out before him, already mostly recovered from the blast but still crouching a little at the stomach.

"You will regret that action," she said forebodingly, not needing to yell, "one who resembles our friend but is _not!_"

"Ha, _show_ me then, Bright Eyes!" the android mocked and, playing Beast Boy's slight frame and its own speed to its advantage, he slipped out from under Cyborg's attempts to restrain and keep him from attacking the others. The droid was supposed to break Cyborg's fall in a body slam to the floor so Cyborg fumbled suddenly on his feet to keep standing. Nearby Raven was quickly getting herself over the electric shock.

"Excuse me," the android quipped and as he ran he shoved Robin from his way like there was a hidden bodybuilder beneath that skinny frame. "I've got to take that challenge from your little girlfriend."

He jumped off the ledge before Robin could get him back, engaged a pair of thrusters from his feet and was gone to chase after Starfire.

Shaking off what she could of her still present pain, Raven took straight off through the window after them both. The air space above the tower was just as quickly filled with the sounds of beams, dark energy and battle cries as the girls fought to take it down.

"It's trying to split us up!" Robin realized almost at once when the android was clearly more of an intellectual model than its sisters. "Come on-!"

"Yeah, to the roof, I know!" Cyborg grunted, readying his blaster as he tried to keep pace with Robin and his mad dash up the stairs. The blaster was only partially-charged at that very early time in the morning, enough for a single run for trouble, and one could only hope it was enough.

They made it to the flat-top roof of the tower and sights now accompanied the sounds they'd heard. Starfire and Raven had more fluid motions of flying but the android still held his own, more skating across the air than flying with his feet thrusters and supporting ones under his forearms. Now that it was fighting for real, this model resembled a robotic tank much more so than the ones that Robin remembered. It retained the blade-hands but any part of it that moved seemed equipped with blasters, blades or the electric shocks that had fried Raven.

"Nice you see you guys again," the android said sarcastically in Beast Boy's voice and he took a moment out from fighting to send a handful of miniature missiles in Robin and Cyborg's direction.

The two didn't need to signal the other to split off to either side when the missiles came down on them fast. But they didn't explode on the roof where the boys had been standing a couple seconds before.

"Heat-seekers!" Robin said, looking behind him to see the missiles nipping at his cape.

"I kinda figured that, man!" Cyborg retorted back and when he could afford the chance he turned up the heat frequency on his sonic cannon. Mostly machine, he gave off less body heat than the rest of the Titans but enough for the missile to still be attracted to him. He had a plan.

In the air, the android could again focus on taking down the Titan girls without interruption. For his ace in the hole there was the button on his forearm set to detonate the bombs in the tower. When the girl Titans went to save the boys who couldn't fly he would have free range to take them all down while they were vulnerable.

But not too soon, not when he could have a little fun first after being locked in the basement of a girl's academy on guard duty for months. The android already had blades for hands but then still more sliced through his forearms like fins through water.

Though she'd broken into a sweat to even keep up with the machine, Raven maintained her wit. "Is there anywhere you _don't_ have another-?"

He didn't let her finish before he swooped down on her with those newly revealed weapons, going for a hit, and she could only bring up her dark energy as a shield. Still, as the energy caught the blade it gave a sickening screech.

Raven turned the shield into a battering ram and bashed the android several yards away from her.

"Keep it at a distance, Starfire," Raven warned, barely glancing to a side where she felt her friend's presence to be, doing no more for fear of taking her eyes off the deadly foe. "Aim for the thrusters."

Starfire nodded. "We shall bring it down to the roof where all may visit to claim a piece."

And the girls backed off, put plenty of safe distance between themselves and the droid as to not be skewered by any one of its numerous blades. Its "air-skating" couldn't match the ease of their real flying but it moved faster than either of them and locked in on Starfire. She rained her starbolts down, flying backwards to keep him in sight, and Raven trailed close behind the two firing as well so that the droid had to focus some attention on her too and could never get too close to Starfire.

By some stroke of luck, the girls both seized the same opening on the droid's left forearm thruster. It exploded the complete underside of that arm and the droid veered an unintentional sharp left. It took a guise under that moment of weakness to fire out another energy beam just when they wouldn't be expecting it but Raven noticed just soon enough and put up a wall for it to ricochet off of.

The missiles were right on Cyborg's tail just as fast as he could run but once he could afford to fire a shot he did. He transformed his arm into its cannon form and fired off a circular blast that had heat like a miniature sun.

He dropped to the ground. The missile nearer to him took the bait and there was a fantastic explosion above their heads. The other one remained locked onto its original target and, in the comprising position he was in on the ground, Cyborg fired another beam at it dead-on.

The second missile became lost in the beam's light but when the light dissipated it still remained, worse for wear. It seemed to overlook Cyborg's lesser heat signature as one and the same as the beam it had been blasted with and thus set a new target for the next nearest person.

"I _just_ got _rid_ of one!" Robin barked across the roof in riled irritation, back up to two missiles again after he'd managed to deactivate one by figuring the exact place to slice it in half with one of his birdarangs and taking a split-second to aim.

"_Sor – ry!_" Cyborg dragged out but he didn't stop for more than a quick breather when Robin hadn't even gotten that yet. This time he drew the bait closer to home by simply charging his cannon like an inviting campfire.

"Here, fishie…"

"I can't keep this up forever, Cyborg!"

"Sure you can, dude," Cyborg teased even in the midst of battle, continuing to shake around his heat bait. "You're our fearless, invincible leader, aren't ya? Isn't that what we've all been told to believe?"

"We need to help out Starfire and Raven! I'm not going to let couple of missiles get in my way!"

"And you'd say the same thing for any other "minor" inconvenience," sighed Cyborg, knowing his friend all too well. It would mean he wouldn't have more than a single shot left after but Cyborg charged the cannon hotter.

Soon enough one of the missiles deviated off course straight to him and he was off running again. The missiles were much too fast for them to be disposed of by conventional means and that was only why Robin hadn't been able to get rid of them with ease. They stole away nearly all of his reaction time but no more. The boys went for either length ways side of the roof and stared running at full speed towards the other so the missiles sped up too and would be unable to divert course.

"Low!" Robin called out when they couldn't afford to mess this one up.

"Got it!" Cyborg echoed as they were about to collide but before they did Cyborg arched his spine back far enough to snap a normal person's in two and Robin's slid underneath his friend's legs so that, by the time the missiles collided, they were both far gone from the blast range. The roof was built to withstand a heavy load and only received black scorch marks.

One of the droid's thrusters was gone and another lagging badly and it was taking its toll on its performance. He couldn't just outmaneuver every blast from Starfire and Raven anymore but had to block them with his arms, which were steadily showing signs of damage throughout that the circuits worked feverishly to repair it all. The girls stayed out of range of his blades so he could only use beams like they did but when he tried to strike Raven again there was a split-second cutting sound.

His outstretched metal hand fell from its wrist, severed like a hot knife through butter.

The droid glared back to where Robin caught the birdarang he'd thrown and fired off yet more weapons from his belt. Cyborg had only a single shot left after he'd used nearly all of the little energy his battery had, so he stood nearby ready in wait.

While the droid's attention was focused elsewhere, Raven took Robin's cue and trapped the remaining thrusters on his feet in an orb. She leeched out from it any traces of oxygen or other elements and condensed her hold so that the metallic feet were crushed under the pressure.

Starfire was ready with her part to ground the droid onto the roof where they could all finish it off but the droid wasn't down and out yet. The hand that Robin had severed had been falling to the ground but by some command from the android the hand sparked bright blue and came zooming back upward to its body as if magnetized to return. The level of concentration Raven needed to pull off what had slowed her reaction time to let her hold of him go all at once and so Starfire diverted course to get Raven out of the line of fire.

Like a loyal pet, the hand reattached to the android's body. Without Raven's influence, the droid began to lose altitude but it rerouted all its system functions into repairing its crippled feet to regain flight. The small section started being prepared at an alarmingly fast rate.

"All together!" Robin ordered his team when the opponent was weak. "Don't let it repair!"

Black, green and blue beams, coupled with compact bombs and birdarangs hit the droid all at once. The result pulled apart its metallic body at every seam and it could barely keep its shredded limbs attached, even as the system worked to repair itself.

The droid had lost and could delay no longer its detonation of the bombs planted within the tower. This time it fell for true and it struggled to move its limbs that deteriorated more with every movement. With only a couple fingers left it pressed the detonation button and it looked upon the tower, expecting to see that cocky grin wiped right off the leader's face as his footing crumbled beneath him.

The explosion never happened and the droid saw that its detonation wire had been disconnected. He refocused a portion of its repairs to stitch up the quick fix.

"Don't let it hit the ground!" But Raven and Starfire hardly needed Robin to tell them that when the droid was the only clue they had to Beast Boy's whereabouts. They swooped down after the broken body at once, Raven severing the few stray bits that connected the head to the neck, Starfire gripping hold of a small space on the body that bore no blades and heaving it out into the ocean below where no machine could repair itself.

Raven fluttered down to the roof with the head that couldn't hurt them anymore.

The livid glares the four Titans all inflicted upon the Beast Boy imposter's head could've rusted through the metal on his fake face but the head only gave a half-hearted sigh of defeat. "I _still_ think _goth-girl_ is the one that's been freaking out lately."

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All four Titans were plenty upset at the situation that were presently in but none so much as Robin who stormed back down the stairs a few paces ahead of the rest. He couldn't wait to get to the interrogation room of the tower so instead swept aside a space on the junk food disaster on the counter and slammed the disembodied head onto it with purposeful roughness.

"All right, _you! _I want some answers!"

The head huffed, "Not a very creative interrogation line if you ask me."

"I _wasn't_ asking you!" Robin fired back, riled further than he already was with the snarky attitude of the android. "You replaced Beast Boy when we split up at the girl's academy to investigate, it was the only time you could have! What did you do with him!? Where is he!?"

"My memory's a little fuzzy," the android replied as if there was no way he could care less. "Normally I'd walk it off _but_…" He gave a snide glance to where his body ended somewhere along the fourth vertebrae and didn't need to say any more.

Though part of her wanted to join Robin in smashing the information they needed out of the droid, Raven held back and she put a hand to Robin to do the same. There was little left of the droid and they didn't want to push too hard.

Cyborg joined the rest in the den quite a few paces behind. "Once I picked up that B wasn't B on the scanners I ran a diagnostics check on the rest of the tower. It's laced with bombs but it's safe to say the detonation trigger is at the bottom of the bay right now." He set down a universal battery pack on the counter. "This should keep our little imposter up and running until you get what you need out of him. Hey Star, you want to help me sniff out all those bombs?"

That specific turn of phrase converted some of Starfire's righteous anger into sadness. "Beast Boy is the one to ask when one is in need of most powerful nose…not me."

That statement of hers brought the rest of them down a little in the same way. Only when Starfire had left the room was Robin unable to keep holding back for her sake. Rather than demand the same answer out of the uncooperative head, he returned with a blowtorch from one of Cyborg and Starfire's many kitchen experiments.

"Ooo, that's an awfully dark method for a superhero to take," the android commented, slightly amused. No fear bloomed on its face even as Robin lit the torch and drew it near to his face with a dead-set look of determination. He only seemed to goad Robin on.

"You're _going_ to tell us what you've done with him!"

"Pain is a human emotion," the droid said in plain English when neither teenager reached that conclusion first. "I can't imagine why my manufacturers would ever want to program me with it. You have nothing you can threaten me with and you know it."

"I can burn a hole straight through your circuits," Robin threatened anyway, anything to get out the rage he was feeling at being tricked at such a personal level but he wanted to take it even further. He wanted to melt away that fake green skin from the metal muscles and burn its voice box into an unrecognizable croak, anything to take away that sight of the fake when he knew not the condition of his missing friend.

A warm touch closed over Robin's strained hand, easing its hold over the torch.

"This isn't the way to go about the situation," Raven said and she pulled the weapon from him entirely when he had calmed down on some miniscule level. She flipped on her communicator and was unsurprised to find Beast Boy's signal out of range. They were programmed to work on a global scale and so the only conclusion was that he wasn't even on the same planet anymore.

Raven flipped over to Cyborg and called him back from his bomb-sniffing duties. While she awaited his return she stepped before Robin to the head. "You don't have sufficient shields to block me from seeing into your mind. Tell me, why was it that for a few random intervals during our fight that the space behind your eyes flashed white?"

Caught off guard in that, the droid's composure collapsed and it couldn't regain it quickly enough for them not to notice.

Raven knew she had struck something and continued, "I saw a reel of images flash at lightning speed. They showed the four of us, the range of our powers and any other information you could gather. I'll bet you were hacking Beast Boy's memories right then. You want to know something else?"

He gave her a look of complete loathing.

"A human brain is the most complex device on the planet. It doesn't really matter if your programming is unmatched in this galaxy, you can't filter the exact information you require without receiving excess in the mix." Her lips turned up into a rare grin in that she had him cornered. "Those other thoughts were at the surface of Beast Boy's mind, things he was seeing at this very moment."

"What?" Robin started. "Then-?"

"He's fine, Robin," Raven assured the boy before he could work himself up over it. "The scene was dark and it moved by very fast but I can tell you that much. Cyborg," she said, moving right along when he came in, "normal interrogation isn't going to work on this one. I think you're going to have to get into its mainframe and pull a hack job on it."

Robin nodded and he elaborated on her point, "The previous models were hooked up to a motherboard. Gain control over this one's motherboard, all those more _expensive_ models-" – he exchanged a look of contempt with the head – "and we'll gain some leverage."

To any onlooker that didn't know the boy well it might've seemed that Robin had effectively stomped down the rage he'd been feeling then and there but in truth he was only saving it. He'd only gotten two hours of sleep in but it was still the furthest thing from his mind when he attacked the punching bag in his training room with such ferocity he might've snapped the chains holding it aloft.

Only when no part of his uniform wasn't soaked with sweat did he feel he had the right to stop. Robin pulled out his communicator but Cyborg called him first. "Dude, everyone's packed and ready to go! You coming or what?"

"What?" Robin exhaled with some surprise. "I never told you to-"

"Yeah you didn't, we kind of drew out that conclusion ourselves. I've got what I need from the droid's mainframe and we've already made arrangements to have Kid Flash fill in for us while we're gone. Now get that spiky head of yours down to the garage and join us already."

Robin snapped the communicator shut and with a little frustration. He'd just gotten back but it was back to Gotham City again.


	3. Chapter 3

Read and review!

Arual-san

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The world he found himself wandering through was like a picture of rolling meadow that was forever fuzzy and out of focus. The dandelions swaying several yards away were the same blurry mess as the one he held right up before his eyes.

Beast Boy could only look so long without getting a headache.

Whether it was his vision that was out of whack or the field itself, neither seemed inclined to clear up and so he threw the weed aside in annoyance. Looking up, the blurry meadow seemed to stretch on forever and beyond. He gave a sigh and kept straight on walking as he'd done for what seemed like days when there was only the green of the grass and the yellow of the dandelions.

As nonsensical as dreams could be, despite the fact that he usually forgot most of what they detailed by the time he woke up, Beast Boy seemed to be able to sense that this was a dream unlike many that came before it. Usually, when he was able to come to the realization that he was in a dream while it was still playing out in his head, he could manipulate so much more than just the shape of his body. He'd had quite a lot of fun making dream-versions of his friends do whatever he wanted, namely laugh at any and every joke he told, but now his thought processes were every bit as blurry as the meadow.

He knew this realm wasn't real and that was a start. For so long Beast Boy could only continue to walk across the meadow in efforts to get his sluggish mind running again somehow when the rest of him pleaded for him to just lay down in the soft grass and let it swallow him up.

Something had happened…hadn't it?

But that thought wasn't any new information uncovered. It had been the same thing he'd been repeating to himself over and again in hopes that it would spark further information. His brain couldn't process coherently, it didn't want to, but he kept pressing the matter with every step he took.

"Starfish…" he murmured, picking out that memory. "I morphed into it…on the side of the jet…why did I…?"

Pulling that thought stream from out of his head slowed him a little as his brain finally started to wake up.

"Umm…" he continued on, continuing to walk when the need to sit and rest became greater, "my wrists were all red, Raven was…yelling at me…but she's _always_ yelling at me…uh…became a lemur…those nasty, smelly…"

That was the memory that brought the rest all flowing back like tidal wave and the shock was enough to wake him up in that same instant.

"It was a trap!"

Beast Boy sprung up straight-backed from the bottom bunk of the bed he was on so fast that he just missed banging his already ailing skull into the wooden frame above. The harsh transition from horizontal to vertical made his head spin some more. He couldn't pay that any mind now, not when he realized that he had lost that crucial fight with the last remaining android.

Even now he still saw that robotic girl standing tall over him in his remaining moments of consciousness, waving goodbye to him and taking on his form, that fake that had fooled him into believing she could be the real version of that pretty academy girl he had met in the café.

"_Stupid!_" His scalp still hurt from where he had pulled it in a last ditch effort to stay awake but Beast Boy pulled at it some more for being a hormonal teenager back then instead of the hero he was supposed to be. If only he'd been thinking, analyzing the situation in the basement like Robin always did, he would've known that the droid couldn't have possibly been Brooke. The two droids they'd spied on that night had been the ones in the café had possessed the correct information of that night so only another model of droid could've known the same.

"Hey, Rob," he said hazily, fumbling for the bunk above him, "thanks for getting me out of that pinch." By his tone he barely omitted to add "again". "I'm really sorry, I…"

"Keep it down, brat!" And the sleeper above pulled onto the far end of the mattress.

"Huh?" Beast Boy was fairly sure that Robin was past his awkward stage and so his voice shouldn't have been sounding as deep as it did. He was also pretty sure that his friend wouldn't insult him like that but with his mind still returning he had to be sure.

He jumped onto the ledge of the top bunk but he didn't see his teammate there switching beds for the sake of not having to lug his friend's unconscious body up the ladder for their final night.

From what he could see in the dark the person there had a bald blue head and tiny funnels for ears.

Tension rising at once, Beast Boy touched back down to the floor. Now he looked left and right, taking everything in, and he saw more of the same bunk beds stacked up against the walls in a room much longer than his dinky dorm room could boast. Parts of the other people sleeping revealed that they were not at all the kind of people he was accustomed to seeing but aliens from other worlds.

While he was observing things he noticed that the droid had stolen his pajamas and he was left with only that awful, moth-bitten stand-in for his regular uniform. A plain outfit laid out for him on a shoddy nightstand but he didn't put it on just yet.

His skin was still the healthy peach color of any normal teenager but the generator rings were low on energy, the batteries not meant to run for such a long length of time. They wouldn't keep him disguised for very much longer.

All of these things were poor distractions that his mind raced to gobble up before he had to come to the worst part of his situation. It wasn't about where he was or what his fate was to be but that the droid was now certain to be posing as his double.

"Robin…"

This could quite possibly be the only time his fearless leader could be rendered defenseless. Robin trusted him as his friend and he only needed to expose his back once to that imposter and…

Beast Boy scrambled for his communicator just as fast as his hands could function. Luckily it was still there; the android hadn't stolen it from him. He soon found that the droid hadn't needed to however. All he received was static.

"No…No!" he hissed at the communicator, banging at it. He was up off his feet at all angles of the room and perching off an empty top bunk for any kind of signal. There was nothing.

"Not good, not good!"

"Would somebody shut him up?"

"Oh man, I was such an idiot." He'd had slips of judgment before but none so serious, none that put his friend's life in danger. "If anything happens, if anything _happens_ I-"

He'd thought he'd been recovering from that serum he'd been injected with but a sudden flurry of motion behind his eyelids made him stop babbling and fall back against a bedpost for support. Hundreds of images flashed by much too fast for him to process and he somehow felt an alien presence fingering over those images that were his memories of his friends. It was overwhelming of his vision and Beast Boy could only close his eyes and wait for it to stop, unable to get rid of it.

A few things he'd managed to pick up during the rushing stream of images were sights that weren't his at all. He saw an aerial view of the tower with Starfire and Raven below firing bolts and energy at him and he squirmed at viewing the receiving end of their firepower.

"It's that droid," he murmured woozily. "Some kinda link…"

But just as he was about to resign himself to the sickening feel of all those flashing images Beast Boy felt a familiar presence slip into the throng. He didn't need her image added to know that it was her.

"Raven!" Beast Boy cried out in a loud whisper so that he wouldn't push the other sleepers to distract him. Had he been thinking clearly he might've thought to think the words rather than speak them.

"Raven, what's going on?"

_Where are you?_ Raven asked and she sounded rushed in the heat of battle. _Are you hurt?_

"No, no, fine!" he got out in a rush. "What's happening with that droid? What about-?" He'd known that their time was short but still he was shocked when she was suddenly cut off and the visions stopped.

Raven would be unable to reconnect that link when they were so far away that the communicators didn't work.

Beast Boy sunk to his mattress in stress hardly relieved by his contact with her. What she asked was the standard first line of communication in any given situation, if he was okay, other questions would've had to wait for later. He'd only seen the girls and even then in a dangerous position. He knew nothing about how they were doing in the fight taking place at that very instant and worse still he didn't know if Robin had made it through.

Those awful thoughts spiraling in his head made it impossible to sit still for very long.

"Hey!" He jumped back onto the upper railing of his bedpost to his grumpy bedmate. "Where are we?"

"You'll be wedged deep within the floorboards if you don't leave me be."

"I don't need any attitude right now!" he came back harshly, his anxiety giving him strength in an unknown situation. "You can complain about it or you can just tell me what I need to know and get to sleep sooner. Just know that I can be very, _very_ annoying."

"I've noticed that," the alien man grumbled but he rolled over to face the boy. Beast Boy might've startled a little at the alien's bug-like eyes the size of CD's but his raging anxiety didn't permit that. "You're in the worker quarters of your new lord and master so get used to it."

"Details please!"

The man grumbled some more but obliged. "This is the Horse-Head Nebula, Planet Gamoht, a relatively small world that is nothing but sand, wind and desert monsters. All of us here are currently in the employ of Lord Nezhara, ruler of the Southwestern region."

"Employ?" Beast Boy scoffed. "You _mean_ we're slaves."

"If you want to be technical about it, yes. Anything else?"

"Yeah, give me the layout of the building so I can make a break for it."

So many of the others had been trying to ignore him and get back to sleep but just then a great deal of them perked up with laughter. Beast Boy's eyes shot to a side in annoyance, having been completely serious.

"Oh we're not kept here under lock and key," one said between chuckles. "You can escape quite easily but it's a five day journey to the nearest city."

Another pitched in, "You'll be dead long before then with the sandstorms and the monsters that hide within them."

"You guys wouldn't really _know_ if anyone's survived the journey, would you?" Beast Boy came back smartly and the laughter stopped. It turned to resentment that this scrawny Earth boy was mocking them in so many words but Beast Boy didn't intend to waste any more time with them.

He didn't have any possessions on him so there was no delay in him walking to the door, placing a hand on the handle.

"Wait." A hand pulled back his shoulder before he could leave.

Beast Boy turned to see another human teenager, one of the few humans in the quarters. The slight boy with glasses wore an academy shirt, an insignia different from Birnamwood, confirming Robin's suspicions that the operation was widespread across the nation. The shirt was so wrinkled and dirty that just the sight of it would've earned the boy a demerit.

"If you won't be convinced otherwise than please just don't go at night."

Beast Boy hesitated when the concern in those words was genuine. He saw several others on the bunks wearing the same worried expression.

"If it's the monsters…" Beast Boy started, plenty used to being underestimated in human form.

The academy boy shook his head and then nodded it toward the one window in the room. "Not even any of the animals of this planet are equipped to withstand how cold the desert gets at night. They all burrow away; the sands are bare for miles. Check it if you don't believe me."

The boy had no reason to lie to him but Beast Boy stepped forward to check anyway.

The sand beyond the palace walls stretched on for just as long as the meadows did in his dreams. Mountains of sand formed and valleys dipped low, a landscape forever changed and sculpted by the harsh winds that blew. Although Beast Boy could see for many miles, the sands were without a single hint of life, as was the same for the sleeping palace grounds and town below.

The window he was sure was insulated to ward off the cold but still it was a shock to touch it. He pulled away with a look of doubt.

"Well," the boy continued, making a marked effort to put a little cheer in his voice after the gloomy subject, "my name's Benji. I guess I'll show you the ropes tomorrow since you're new. It's really not so bad here if you follow all the rules and-"

"Mine's Gar," Beast Boy said bluntly, too stressed at the moment for manners. "See you then." He didn't move towards his bed but made a beeline straight back to the door.

"Hey! You're not still going outside, are you? You'll freeze!"

"No," Beast Boy grumbled. There was no possible way he was getting any sleep that night when he was so worried over Robin and quite possibly the whole rest of his team. "If I'm going to be staying here for a while I want to look around and get a feel for the place. Are there any guards around here to make sure we stay in our little cell?"

"Technically no, but there are guards that patrol the halls anyway. This Lord Nezhara guy is pretty hated by the residents of the palace town so he needs a lot of security for assassination attempts. Don't think those guards won't punish you though if they catch you past lights out."

Beast Boy gave a lazy wave over his shoulder. "Got it. Thanks, Benny."

If he hadn't had the powers he did Beast Boy would've most likely have been the least stealthy of the Titans but having those powers automatically made him the stealthiest. Not even the Boy Wonder could stroll straight past a guard undetected but Beast Boy did in the form of an indistinct insect. He didn't know the types of fauna this world contained so couldn't take the chance of becoming anything larger.

Once the guard was gone down the hall Beast Boy changed back, never getting used to an insect's compound eyes.

He glanced back with the hope that he would be able to find the slave's quarters when it bore no distinguishing characteristics from the rest of the hallway other than a plain-looking door. He went a good long time without running into anyone else and he slipped under the doors just as he had done back at the academy, this time without fear of repercussions.

So many were useless to him but when he finally found a communications room he still found himself barred from contacting the others. The alien language labeling the control board bore no resemblance to English and additionally required a key to activate the system.

Beast Boy couldn't go putting a giant red 'X' on the door to mark it as a room to come back to so he changed to an ant and left a pheromone trail only he could pick up while in that form. That was some progress at least when each winding corridor was like the one before.

There was nothing he could do right then and he knew it, nothing but get to bed so he wouldn't be tired for his sure to be early shift tomorrow.

"Sorry guys," he murmured under his breath, depressed that he couldn't do more. "Be safe."

He'd already passed the guard assigned to patrol the hallway he walked currently so he found his ears instinctively perking up a little when he heard a new set of footsteps coming from up ahead.

He didn't need to be in an animal form to recognize that they were lighter set not in the heavy, clunking boots of the guards. He'd seen no one else during that late night trek so he could only assume it was another slave up out of bed like himself.

Erring on the side of safety, Beast Boy grabbed a small vase from a display to make like he was delivering it. There was really no need to transform just then and he didn't have the energy for it anyway.

The footsteps neared and with it came the slight figure of a shadow. The figure rounded the corner before he did and the abrupt sight of that face again nearly made him drop his vase.

"Brooke?"

The brunette had seemed so focused to finish her assigned task with the tray of medical supplies she held but she looked up the way anyone would at being called by name. When she did, he saw that she wasn't precisely the perfect female form the androids had depicted her as. She was still a pretty fourteen-year-old but not in top game with flat, un-styled hair and without a trace of makeup to put a little more color in her pale, slightly drawn face.

Brooke's blue eyes were tired but with a little apprehension they flashed to the stranger that had called her name.

"Are you…" Beast Boy started with some hesitation after he'd been tricked twice already, "are you real?"

A side of her face pulled lightly at the bizarre question, the dignified way a high society girl would express distaste. Keeping her focus on him, she very gradually set down her tray on the ornate desk by her side.

When she was free of that burden Brooke made a break for it.

"Wha-? No wait!" Some part of him cautioned otherwise but he took off after her. "I'm not some creepy little weirdo! Come on!"

Rushed footsteps echoed with more intensity than light ones but for that Brooke didn't have a care and Beast Boy didn't either as he chased after her. She was only a few yards before him but then she darted right and he overshot the turn. He doubled back and there was more space between them but there was no hesitation in any of her decisions to navigate the seemingly identical halls. He always ran harder and she ran with a trained eye until they were whole corridor lengths apart, until he lost her completely.

"That's just peachy," he said between gasps for breath. He turned round a bend. "You try to be nice to people and-"

Only his training with Robin had toned his reflexes enough to be able to grab the flying fist from connecting with his face.

"Hey!" he said with some irritation, easily holding off Brooke's lesser strength. "Would you settle down?"

"Settle down?" she repeated, incredulous, trying to pull free and hit him again. "You're one of those…those things, those robots! I'm not going anywhere with you, not again! Where are the other girls? Where did you send my sister?"

"What? I'm not an android!"

"Then how do you know my name and _why_ are you acting so weird!? Am I "_real"!?_"

"Because I thought _you_ were an android!"

"That's what an android would say! I can prove I'm the real deal." And in the heat of the conversation she pulled back a bandage on her knee to reveal a cut that a droid could not fake. "How about you?"

Beast Boy sighed but he knew enough not to get caught up in the same anxiety Brooke was feeling. After all, she'd been kidnapped by alien robots and sent worlds away from anything she'd ever known. No one could really take that situation calmly.

He thought about it for a moment as the girl tensed on her feet, waiting to run should his lips pull back in a metallic grin, but didn't know the real girl well enough from her look-alikes to tell any truths that he wasn't her enemy.

Going the simple route, he bit one of his sharpened fangs down on his palm.

"There you go," he said, showing her the tiny wound there. "I bleed too."

"That…" Brooke started, some concern showing through her waning anxiety, "that looks like a puncture wound. How did you…with those flat teeth…?"

It was a minor detail he'd overlooked, that the hologram covered every abnormal aspect of his person which included his fangs, but it was still a minor detail that he smoothed out easily. Now that she wasn't going to try to hit him again, Beast Boy asked how long she'd been there.

"A few weeks," Brooke answered and to let out her anxiety faster she pulled out a mini med-kit from her pocket and set about to sterilize the wound he'd inflicted upon himself. A little surprised, Beast Boy stood back and let her work.

"They've got me working in the nursing department. Some guard broke his leg falling down the stairs so I don't get to sleep tonight but wait…wait, you knew my name so that must means you've met one of my doubles, right?"

"Right."

"What's been going on back at home then?" She'd clearly been dying for details for the span of her absence. "Those droids haven't infiltrated the rest of Gotham, have they? They said there was going to be a takeover, one that even Batman couldn't-!"

"Batman can and he did…with some help." Beast Boy of course neglected to mention that he was part of that help. "The Justice League is aware of this operation now and they're going to use all their resources to find us. Oh, and your roommate Rowan, I know that she's already been rescued if that helps at all."

Brooke's lips turned up a little at hearing that and she knotted the gauze tight on Beast Boy's hand. "So…what do I call you while we're waiting to be rescued too?"


	4. Chapter 4

Well this chapter _does_ have humorous context but it looks like I'm going to have to break my tradition and make 5 the funny chapter instead of 4 since I ran out of word space and a good ending point presented itself. Oh wells!

Last few days have been busy, busy! Went to a wedding and realized I haven't been to one in ten years haha, fixed a fancy birthday dinner of homemade pork ramen and pineapple-upside down cake for my boyfriend, had midterms and did an annual little art project where I sewed a costume for my dog for the Halloween contest at Petsmart. Third place, bah. That's such crap since I'm the _only_ one who conceives original ideas and _makes_ her costumes when everyone else _buys_ one. Indy makes it look really cute; I'll post it on my profile soon. : )

Arual-san

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His three remaining teammates had all their things packed and were all buckled into their sections of the jet patiently waiting for their leader who entered the garage in a huff that he was the last to arrive because of his training. His suitcase was already packed but rather than add anything for the trip he chucked out his academy uniform in the nearest bin to get out some of that anger.

Glancing at the jet, to him it seemed strangely empty without its fifth member and that same feeling seemed to float amongst the others without them saying so. The Titans hadn't thought to fill Beast Boy's empty space with their luggage, going to the extra lengths to strap their things down with rope like they'd done on their last trip, but Robin did throw the imposter's head in there so he wouldn't have to listen to it the whole way.

"Hey there, Mr. Leader Man," Kid Flash said peaceably, pushing off the wall he leaned on in a vain attempt to lift some of the Titan leader's moodiness. "Don't you worry your spiky head one minute about Jump while you're gone. Jinx and I have got it covered top to toe."

"I didn't mean to contact you on such short notice," Robin said, the other boy's cheeriness having little effect.

The pink-haired witch gave a lazy shrug of the shoulders. "We didn't have a whole lot going on anyway. So what's the scoop?"

"As you may have noticed Beast Boy isn't here right now," Robin said with some regret. "He's missing and we're heading over to Gotham to get information on how to track him down. You two can stay in any guest room you want but if you know what's good for you you'll stay out of Raven's room. The den is enough of a disaster as is so please don't add very much to it. The fridge is stocked and I expect Cyborg gave you the tower's security codes and what not. Any questions?"

Already Jinx seemed bored with his long-winded explanation, understandably a little out of it after zooming 200+ miles an hour over the bay in her speedy boyfriend's wake, but Kid Flash flicked his hand in the air.

Robin was straight onto his reply without asking the question. "No block parties…and you can stop crossing your fingers behind your back to negate that rule."

"Killjoy," Kid Flash sighed, though hardly any of his always sunny mood was compromised.

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While three of the Titans had only missed out on a couple hours sleep Robin had hardly gotten any on which to function at all. Still he insisted on piloting the jet back to Gotham City and his determination was a force more powerful than usual. He fronted a stony near silence to any of them that tried to contact him over the intercoms, answering with only mumbles and one-liners, focusing only on the sky ahead that never changed.

It was nothing against them they all knew but moreover their perfectionist leader mentally beating himself about the situation with Beast Boy. Robin didn't want to talk, didn't want to bring up this failing of his, he only wanted to solve the problem and recover their teammate as quickly as possible.

That didn't mean that his friends would permit him to brood in solitude.

"Robin man that was an exact duplicate of B," Cyborg said, pressing the button of the intercom. "Before the droid deactivated it, there was a two-way transmitter chip so that he could access and fake B's memories too."

"Please Robin none of us places the blame on you," Starfire contributed straight after. She looked through the windows to her silent leader to see his eyes hadn't deterred direction and she placed her hand to the glass as if to attract his attention in some other way. He scarcely blinked in that dead-set focus and that worried her. But there were more barriers between them then than just the glass.

"Guys,"

From their next attempts to get Robin out of his funk Cyborg and Starfire were interrupted. When she had cut off those attempts, Raven continued speaking through their wires only. "I really think we just need to leave Robin alone right now."

"But the fault is not his!" Starfire protested. "I would not have known that the Beast Boy imposter was not our real Beast Boy had you not-"

"We all know that Star and I'm not saying it any differently, it's just…" – her violet eyes wandered in Robin's direction – "you know how he is. Robin just needs some time to cool off from this; we need to give him some space. I know I'd be more than a little rattled if what had happened to him happened to me…thinking someone was your friend, treating them so and never suspecting anything different."

"Why's he always got to do this?" commented Cyborg a little moodily. "We're trying to help but he just shuts us out, sometimes I don't know why I even bother at all." He didn't really mean that both of the girls knew but they too had a share in the frustration that Robin could be sometimes.

Starfire again looked away from the dashboard to where Robin piloted the craft. She wasn't sure at the distance but his eyebrows had furrowed beneath the mask...very possibly in guilt.

"If he should ever _want_ to talk…" And as Starfire trailed off without finishing the other two nodded instinctively though the action could not be communicated over the intercom. They cruised the skies in the same relative silence but Cyborg commandeered control of the jet when he felt that Robin had flown enough under limited sleep. Cyborg's hacking abilities dominated Robin's own so Robin could only sit in the cockpit, now with no task to focus on. So long as it wasn't about their current mission, the girls were able to coax some conversation out of him to try to lift his bad mood.

Time passed and Gotham came into view. The dark city didn't seem quite so dark in the prime times of morning.

In the little space the cockpit would permit Starfire jumped to the window where the others didn't to take in the sights of the big-time city that dwarfed their little Jump. Many corporate branches had their roots centered in Gotham and so the buildings were all that much taller and more impressive than smaller cities could boast. So many sights to see flew by so fast that Starfire jumped to all sides of her window just to keep up.

"Ooo, this is most exciting visiting the land of your origin, Robin," she beamed, pressing the button for his line. "What is there to see in this city of Gotham while we are-?"

"But I just got back!" Robin abruptly shot out in a clipped tone, unintentionally cutting Starfire short. When she was sure the words weren't directed to her, Starfire kept the button depressed and listened along to the voice Robin had been talking to, one she didn't recognize.

"And _how_ many times have I filled in for you?" Batgirl returned with the same amount of fire. Exclusively on Robin's screen, she wasn't presently clothed in her superhero attire, had only half of her makeup on and was speedily rushing around her bedroom trying to get everything in order. "Our teacher just got out of a messy divorce so he's taking it out on us out of spite by piling us up with homework." She pulled a mascara brush across her lashes. "Batman's taken off again for who knows where and I've barely gotten any sleep, I-"

"Same here!"

"Oh you're a vampire anyway so what's it matter? Oww!" In yelling at him Barbara's grip slipped on her straightener and she burnt her thumb. "I know _you_ don't have to worry about school anymore but _I _do. What's so important that you-?"

"I have a _very_ important-!"

But throughout the chaos of Barbara's morning yet another thing came to add to the mix: the cheery tinkling sound of her ringtone. She grabbed hold of her cell phone with her toes and pitched it up where she could grab it from the air. Her stress instantly spiked up into ecstasy like the voice on the other end was a shot of Red Bull.

"_Casey!_ I'm so glad you called!" she beamed while Robin waited on the sidelines. "Yeah, I had a _great_ time last night! You liked my dress? Aww that's so sweet, I just knew I had to get it when I saw it in the store window." Her caller said more and she swooned. Barbara winked at her former teammate and mimed the words "He's hot."

As she chatted with the boy, twirling around and blushing in that he couldn't see her, Robin tapped his fingers on his arm in dwindling patience.

Finally Barbara took a second out from her new love interest to remember that she'd originally called Robin. Her eyes danced mischievously to him and her lips stretched wide with a smile as she confirmed with Casey a ride to school.

"Not _now_," Robin hissed under his breath so that the other guy wouldn't hear but Barbara listened cheerily to the things the boy Casey said she raised a hand high and waggled it to her teammate in show. "Bye-bye!"

The screen went black and Robin banged his head against his seat.

"Who was that _girl_ to whom you were speaking?" Starfire questioned, the first to ask out of the three when it was concerning another girl.

The way a boy could sometimes, Robin seemed to miss the specific tone she used in that his relationship with her had better be nothing more than friendship. "That was my old teammate Batgirl. She just stuck us with a bank robbery to stop. And since we have to do it _now-" _– he took a moment to growl over that – "we're going to have to land instead of heading directly to headquarters. Cyborg, reroute direction to Wayne Towers."

"Don't we have one of their branch companies in Jump?" Cyborg asked over the intercom. "Why there?"

"We've got some inside people working for us there," Robin explained, not going any deeper and to head off any further questions he added that Cyborg could finally employ that stealth mode on the jet he'd been waiting to use. Cyborg beamed over that new toy of his and initiated it when they neared the tower.

Robin typed in a number into the jet's communicator that he'd not used in a long time.

After a couple rings a kindly voice answered, "Wayne Enterprises, this is Lucius Fox speaking."

A small rush of good feeling came to Robin when he heard that reassuring voice that could calm any strife, one he'd not been so fortunate to hear on his previous visit. "Good morning," he answered simply, imagining the surprise on the old man's face when the other end went silent. "Do you think you could clear any helicopter landings on the roof for an old friend?"

There was hardly enough time for Robin to let Mr. Fox welcome him back properly if the team was ever going to catch the bank robbers when every second counted. Robin was courteous enough in their short conversation and as he left the keys with the man but even his teammates, who were used to his many eccentrics, were surprised when he ran to the edge of the roof and jumped clear off. Had it been anyone but Robin they might've questioned the person's sanity but with him they were merely surprised and hurried after in his wake.

At some point during his freefall Robin drew an arm back and fired a grappling hook.

Robin had gauged where he'd had to fire when he fell and he hit the ledge of the roof without needing to look. He took the resulting whiplash of the wire in stride and raced down the side of the building like the dangerous activity was nothing more than a horizontal track race. Gravity didn't apply to the girls as it did to him so Starfire and Raven soon caught up to him with Cyborg in tow.

"So where's the bank then?" Cyborg asked with some envy as he was carted along by Starfire like a piece of luggage.

"Gotham First National is on the corner of West 28th and Kensington," Robin relayed and the way he said it he may have also been giving himself a refresher on that note. "It's not far but you can bet whoever robbed it is several blocks away by now."

Raven's critical eyes traveled across the building tops of Gotham to a place in the distance where a number of sirens and lights were flashing. "How _ever_ will we be able to pick up the trail?" She had nothing weighing her back like the others so she was the first to part from the wall and across the air to the crime scene below. The others weren't far behind and Robin fired out another hook to a flagpole on the next highest building abruptly changing direction to keep up. His teammates moved effortlessly but so did he.

By the time the Titans reached the scene they discovered why the squadron hadn't moved from the same street for a few minutes. Tiny metal spikes been tossed from the back of the pursued vehicle. The tires of the police cars were shredded beyond repair and two of the cars had even flipped onto their sides in pursuit. The teens passed straight by the officers when they could no longer catch up and had to call for backup to head the thieves off. A few of them let out exclamations of the return of Batman's former sidekick. This was no longer their game.

Though the accident with the police had been fairly recent by the look of it there were many different routes or back alleys that the pursued could've taken even with the Titans hot pursuit. They'd not gone far past the police when Robin was about to signal them to split up.

"Looks like we don't need to."

The other three looked to where Cyborg pointed to find that an empty convertible had crashed sidelong into a lamppost only after its occupants had just inflicted similar crashes upon the police. A shell-shocked stray dog quaked in the middle of the street like it would never move again.

"It is all right now, dear one," And once she'd set down Cyborg, Starfire rushed to scoop up the terrified animal, dirt, fleas and all, into a hug.

Raven kept a safe distance from the scraggly dog that looked as though it would wet itself all over Starfire's top at any moment. "Well, at least we won't have to add animal cruelty to their sentence."

"This accident is fresh," Robin said, doing a quick analysis of the condition of the car. He retracted his Bo and stepped out a few feet before the others. "They can't have gone far. We'll split up to pursue them on foot, radio in if you're closing in on-"

"_Birdie Boy!_"

The sudden exclamation shrieked through the air like a hurricane siren but none of the team was as shocked as Robin when he was instantly tackled by a red and black clad form. The female jester wrapped him up in a suffocating loving embrace usually reserved for the relatives no one visited.

"_Ahh!_" Robin cried out for he could think of nothing else to say.

"Our little songbird is back home at last!" Harley Quinn exclaimed in undisguised joy. "Auntie Harley missed you so much!" And she cuddled the teen closer to her curvy chest, conveniently not noticing as he urgently tried at every opening to escape. She shifted her arms to put Robin into a headlock and still he couldn't pull free as the woman grated her gloved fist into his spiky head with an atomic noogie. "Where have you been, Robbie?"

They'd faced sludge-wielding monsters and demons from other planes of existence but now the other Titans could only stare.

Still Robin struggled to break free from Harley's assault on his scalp and with his friends watching the whole thing in confused disbelief his struggles were even stronger. "Get…off me, you nutcase!"

"Aww, be nice!" Half feigning hurt for the insult, Harley swung him in her arms in a playful manner. "Can't I say hello to my favorite little man?"

Robin was physically stronger than Harley but, rather than employing strength, she knew exactly the stress positioning she needed to keep him where she wanted him. Though she obviously took great delight in hugging the boy after two long years apart she let him go all at once, watched him take off in that same instant, and stood back with a gleaming smile that filled her face.

"Sooo," Raven cracked in her deep voice, unsure of what reaction was appropriate, "she's your "Auntie" then?"

"_No!_" And Robin inflicted the same infuriated force in his tone to his hair in attempt to tame what Harley had noogied into a raging rat's nest. "She's just some petty criminal!"

"Hey! There's more to me than the quirk, the charm and the number one assistant to Mr. J!"

"Oh _really?_" Robin came back, still trying to re-mess up his hair to its spiky form. "Then why do you have that duffel bag on your hip?"

"Uhhh…" Harley stalled and she subtly slid that stuffed bag backwards. Her skinny frame did nothing to hide it but when it was partially hidden behind her back she resumed her smile. "I was at the gym! Can't get a hot body like mine without working out!"

"And you go to the gym in full makeup in that wacky-looking getup?" Cyborg questioned of her in a dry tone.

"Sure do, Toaster-Guy!"

Robin was unconvinced. "Then you wouldn't mind me inspecting that gym bag then?"

Acting insulted, Harley pulled back when Robin moved forward to take it from her. "Didn't Bats teach you how to treat a lady? You don't go trifling through a lady's personal effects. And who are all these new faces anyway?" She turned an unimpressed eye over the half-human half robot, the red-headed alien girl and the girl with the billowing cloak around her shoulders. "Don't recognize any of you kiddies from the Justice Lag. You left us all to start your own little rugrat team then, Robbie?"

Every word she spoke, every time she talked down to him a treated him like child, pushed Robin just a little further. He picked up the Bo he'd dropped when Harley had jumped, made to answer but Starfire was the faster.

"You, whoever you might be, must exercise caution when you are driving the motor vehicle down the street." And in her impassioned statement, the beagle in her arms gave an agreeing bark.

"Oh baby," Harley simpered over the animal and her sympathy was for true. "Are you okay? You know I'd never hurt your sweet face."

"_And_ I have a name attached to my new face," Starfire added. She set the dog down and as it scampered away to safety her green eyes grew more brightly in warning. "It is Starfire and you will remember it when this night is through."

"Sorry darling," a sultry new voice disdained from an alley only a few feet away. A slit of earthy green knee-high boots emerged first followed by the rest of the knockout woman clothed in green with flaming red hair to offset.

Poison Ivy gave a poisonous smirk to match her name. "I'm afraid I've forgotten your name already."


	5. Chapter 5

"Sorry darling," a sultry new voice disdained from an alley only a few feet away. A slit of earthy green knee-high boots emerged first followed by the rest of the knockout woman clothed in green with flaming red hair to offset.

Poison Ivy gave a poisonous smirk to match her name. "I'm afraid I've forgotten it already."

With a poise that told that he was no longer fooling around, Robin slicked back his final bit of dark hair into place. In learned preparation, not fear, he tensed on his feet as the goddess of green came to stand alongside her partner and cast that same unimpressed gaze over his new team. When Harley wasn't with her infamous boyfriend, when she was in the midst of one of their many breakups, she was one half of the equally infamous Gotham Queens of Crime. They, like Robin himself, were plenty a match on their own without a superpower to speak of.

Ivy was more subtle in welcoming Robin home. She blew him a kiss he wouldn't ever want to catch.

As he prepared himself, Robin had a certain positioning that discouraged the others from moving past where he stood at the frontlines. The two women didn't seem in a terrible rush to get out with their loot to save some endangered rainforest or splurge on a shopping spree so Robin took that opportunity while he had it. "Okay guys," he started, turning his head only slightly back to them. "I know we've seen plenty of supercharged figures in Jump but these two have been in the business longer than even me and it would be a grave mistake to underestimate them. Harley-"

"Ooo, do I get a stat screen?" Harley cut in, perking up at the mention of her name "Like one of those dork wizard card game thingies?"

Like he hadn't heard her, Robin continued on even as she struck a pose as her abilities were being described. As if they were all about to engage in some big game, Ivy too struck a sensuous pose when it was her turn and she leaned an elbow onto her friend's shoulder. "We're awfully lucky aren't we, Harley, breaking out when we did?" Ivy continued, making no move to break her casual pose as the teenagers all tensed in preparation to attack. "We might've missed only just the Batman but we also missed Bratgirl."

"Yeah, this'll be lots of fun, Red!" And, breaking Ivy's quiet dignity, Harley bounced up, dislodging her friend, and made like she was a boxer in a ring pumping herself up. She seemed to be the only one full of such pep but that pep suddenly deflated like a popped balloon when she noticed a certain expression on Robin's face. "Aww man, kid's got that "This fight is such a chore; let's just get it over with" kinda look about him. This is supposed to be a treat after so long but he's not even going to give us the ol' 110%. What a drag!"

"He _was_ getting along into those dreaded teenage years last time we saw him…" Poison Ivy mentioned with a little pout.

Like all her former energy had left her, Harley dumped her duffel bag full of cash onto the ground. "Yeah, what of it?"

"If I recall, our Robin was developing a rather hot little temper." Ivy curled a finger over her chin in amusement, having fun as she strung out her little game, and Robin's stance remained unchanged, readying his team for a fight with some of the big-leaguers from Gotham. She lightly clenched her pearly whites into a mischievous grin. "Perhaps we can stoke that flame a little…?"

A new infusion of pep was injected into Harley's spine and she sprung up at the very idea. "Hey yeah! All we need to do is tick him off!" She cupped her hands to her painted lips and recited in tone annoying even for her, "Hey super-brats, I bet you didn't know that when your little leader was a rookie he was getting captured like every week and Bats had to rescue his sorry tush constantly!"

As soon as those words left Harley's mouth Robin's heroic pose lurched back and faltered in that she would ever dare. He noticed his jaw had dropped and he corrected that at once, crunching his teeth back so that his teammates couldn't see this weakness for any more than a couple seconds.

"Are these words she is speaking truthful?" Starfire wondered out loud despite herself.

"I…uh," Robin tried for a grasp on words when he could neither lie to her nor admit a truth that was such a blow to his pride. He didn't trust himself to look back to any of them when the furious blush on his cheeks would betray him. "It's not important! Cyborg and Star, you take Ivy! Raven, you're with me! Be ready, stay alert, on my signal!"

The partners in crime had made a little crack in the Titan leader's resolve but they didn't stop there when they could get a better fight out him yet.

"Harley dear, do you remember that one Halloween where I filled those pumpkins with toxic gas?"

He'd only been trying to recover from the last blow but that remark sent Robin's face so red that his vest could've been pink by comparison. He seemed to forget about his friends and lashed out like his words were barbed whips. "_Shut up!_" he yelled at them but for the reprimand they only giggled. "I'm a vigilante so don't think that I have to leave you in one piece for the cops! I don't! I swear if you-!"

But Harley was already carrying away with the story told far and wide in Robin's rookie days. It wasn't so much a story either but her simply bouncing up and down like a bunny that had ingested an entire field of cane sugar. "_Sugar, sugar, sugar!_" Harley cried out in glee, screaming the word louder every time. "I was a bad widdle boy and ate all my Halloween candy in one go!"

The other Titans didn't have time to find the humor in the situation when in the center of them Robin fumed like a spiky-topped volcano ready to burst its top, embarrassment and fury battling it out within for top bidding.

"Wasn't that the October they started making Robin costumes along with the Bat?" Ivy asked though she knew it was.

"Sure was!" Harley took a moment from her crazed imitation to say. "They were a total hit that year too…with all the little _girls!_"

Cyborg whistled at that. None of the second-rate villains of Jump would have ever dared to tease Robin if they knew what was good for them. Their leader usually held back his full strength in battle but the way he seethed now as if magma was bubbling just below his skin all bets were off. That the two women could ever do such a thing alone told stories of the caliber of villains they were.

"You're going to pay for that!" Robin spat. "Titans GO!"

The teens had strategized the best form of attack playing to their strengths and they all leapt forward at once.

"_TITANS STOP!_" Harley shouted and in the close vicinity everyone's eardrums rang. Despite themselves, when the second demand was so unexpected after hearing the original so many times, Starfire, Cyborg and Raven all came to a screeching stop.

Robin too came to a screeching stop but only when his teammates were no longer at his side, when Harley and Ivy took the team seriously at last and spread out in preparation to engage them. The red that had colored his face just about spread to the whites of his mask and the Titans suddenly felt small under that glare. "We're _not_ playing Simon Says! I said _go!_ _GO!_" But he disappeared right after in a blur before any of them could pick up into a run again to wipe the smirk off of Harley's face.

Like it often did, anger made a fighter a little too reckless in order to score a hit and so Harley dodged in and out of Robin's first two punches. She only dodged, didn't hit back. For every miss her smirk just kept getting wider and Robin's frustration peaked higher.

"Uh oh, he's real steamed now!" Harley mocked though the next fist just grazed her. "Run for the hills, Red, it's teenage _angst!_"

But Robin wasn't alone with her for long. When Harley reared back to finally deliver her first blow she suddenly jilted in place when that fist became encased in a little black orb. Nothing however seemed to curb her amusement of the situation.

"Ooo, neat little trick, Donna Darko!" Harley said, looking on her trapped hand but then she jiggled her wrist. That fist detached from her wrist, revealed as a fake hand, and she sent her real one crashing into Raven's surprised face.

The look of devious delight never left Poison Ivy's green eyes as Starfire and Cyborg both charged her at once. She might've seemed defenseless, the only visible weapon on her being a tiny wrist crossbow, but she never let the two reach her. From concealed pockets on her person she threw tiny packets of powder onto either side and in the same second they exploded writhing vines engorged to the size of pythons.

Cyborg pulled back in time from the sudden obstacle but the vines caught Starfire and sent her reeling back in the air.

Like it was a dear pet, Ivy curled a finger under the petal of a flower that had bloomed from one of the vines. That vine slithered through the straps of the gym bag full of money and held it up high in the air as if it was a prize to be won for the victor of the fight.

"Looks like your little garden could use some pruning." Cyborg cracked a grin and cracked out of few of his sharper metal appliances.

In answer for the threat of hurting the thing she prized over humans, Ivy threw two more packets not at Cyborg but behind him and yet more vines burst to life from nothing. When they surrounded him from all but one side he could only run and fire behind him at the vines that gave chase. Ivy watched him run but was more than ready for when Starfire returned from the corner of her eye.

Had Starfire only been able to reach Poison Ivy through her plants she could've ended it right there with her superior physical strength but Ivy was too experienced a veteran to make such a rookie mistake. She could've had her plants handle it but she took care of the other redhead herself with an arrow shot directly at her face.

Starfire could only block her face with her metal armband, ricocheting the arrow, and while her view was hindered Poison Ivy stepped from Starfire's path and sent her boot crashing into the girl's exposed gut.

"Orange skin doesn't really go well with your complexion," taunted Ivy as though it was somehow required of her when it was concerning another redhead. She moved to strike the same place again, this time with a spiked heel. "Too much sun, darling?"

"Not happening, lady!" And Ivy was forced to back away when Cyborg sent a blast of energy her way.

With a pout, she stepped away from an ailing Starfire and refocused her flailing vines from grabbing anything they could to just solely go after him. Poison Ivy usually remained in place whenever she was cornered in a greenhouse or the like, nestled in a cocoon of both defense and offense, but now her plants were not rooted in any soil and could freely move with her along the concrete.

He'd gotten in a few already but Robin was sure that he was going to score a hit on Harley this time so he put all of his weight into it.

The gymnast reeled back like a limbo player and Robin's weight distribution was thrown off as he kept on forward. Harley saw an opportunity when he was crouched so low and she playfully jumped off his back. "Leap frog! You want to go next, Donna?"

"It's _Raven_."

"Nevermore!" Harley returned, kicking her leg up at the girl in glee.

"Ugly, greasy motorcycles ridden by fat old men!" Raven quipped in a heartbeat when it was a matter of names. That quip and the no-nonsense way Raven said it made a flash of annoyance cross Harley's painted face and Raven had to engorge a couple of orbs around her fists like boxing gloves to fend off Harley's flurry of blows in retribution for the insult.

The smile hadn't left Ivy's face since the fight had begun and it only widened when Cyborg was held captive before her upside down in her vines. He struggled just as much as he was able but she gave him a light push when he wouldn't be able to free himself.

"So have you figured it out yet?" Ivy asked him, completely confident that he couldn't touch her. "Not like it matters anymore but do you know _why_ my vines seem to appear out of nowhere?"

"Seeds…" Cyborg huffed, flexing his fingers but the vines also ate those up. "They're implanted in the soles of your shoes…where ever you walk you…"

"_Very_ good," she said in an overabundance of praise, patting his bald head.

Behind them Starfire was similarly getting swallowed up by vines but while Cyborg was restricted in every way Starfire sent bolts from her eyes in rapid fire onto the vines. More replaced the damaged ones almost as quickly but still she was able to make some progress throughout her constant struggle and crawl in the direction of her trapped friend.

Ivy knelt lower so that she was eye level with the struggling teen. "Robin told you to attack me from a distance but I think that you should know that I'm every bit as poisonous up close."

Starfire only gotten so far along the ground and she couldn't reach them in time when Poison Ivy was closing in.

"Robin, Raven, assist Cyborg this instant!"

But the two could only spare him a moment's notice when they had their hands full with Harley. When they saw Ivy closing in not with any sort of weapon but with her lips any of Raven's confusion was overwhelmed by Robin's immediate anxiety that he couldn't stop Poison Ivy's deadliest special move from happening.

Breaking formation, he gave Harley a shove and switched targets to break Ivy's kiss when seconds were the difference between life and death to its victims. She seemed to have been pulling out of that kiss before she killed Cyborg but still Robin whipped her aside with his Bo.

"Cyborg!" Robin shook his friend that dangled above like a cocoon as meanwhile Raven cried out in pain from Harley's endless attacks and the vines came in every direction to Starfire so she couldn't blast them all at once.

The girls' dire situations rang clearly in his thoughts but still Robin shook his metallic friend again and again when he was only met with dazed silence. "Cyborg, snap out of it!"

All at once Starfire had had enough and as the vines enveloped what little of her not already trapped her green energy seemed to radiate from her core. It glowed from her palms and eyes and when that deadly energy touched the vines it withered them down their spines so that she was able to wrench herself free out of brute force.

"I never said you could get back up!" And Ivy slammed several more vines her way.

Had they just come in one big wave Starfire would've been able to have blasted a big hole right through the center but they came in several small unpredictable waves. She shot down and dodged many of them, nearly reached the end but one tripped up the tip of her foot and unbalanced her and that was all the vines needed to send her back to the ground.

By now Raven was on her knees and panting heavily from all the bruises she'd sustained in vital areas from Harley's attacks. She could only try to take a couple breathes to recover as Harley, less injured in that Raven was trying to subdue rather than maim, advanced on Robin.

"You need to be paying attention, kiddo!" She kicked in the side for his inattention but her next kick was blocked by Raven's dark energy.

Robin was sent reeling to a side but once he got that jolt he saw that the vines were again advancing on Starfire and she was weakening to keep them at bay another time. He ran to her and shredded them with his birdarang with a vengeance.

"Star…" he pulled her up by her shoulders. Though tough she wasn't invincible. "Are you all right?"

"I will recover shortly." Having him there to help her gave Starfire some additional strength to blast some of the vines that had been advancing on Robin. Forgetting for a couple moments, they both stared at the other in concern.

Before another moment could pass they were brought back by barely concealed snickering bit back from exploding into full on laughter. Harley pointedly whispered something into Ivy's ear.

"Stop _whispering_ about me!" Robin barked out in fury and quite forgetting about the object of his affection itself he charged to punish them for making fun of it. But they were ready and cut Cyborg loose from his restraints.

Taking in the dazed look in his friend's eyes, Robin came to a wary standstill.

"Cyborg," Ivy said in a seductive voice and, under her spell, Cyborg smiled dopily like it was the sweetest sound he could hear. "Be a dear and ice your friends for me."

He obliged at once. His cannon charged to life and he aimed it directly at Robin's head as if he were the enemy.

"Starfire, duck!" Robin dodged one way out of the line of fire, Starfire rolled the other way, and the beam passed through the center of them, hitting nothing until it reached a building's wall and punched a large hole through.

"Ha ha, cool! We have our own Robot-Man now!" And Harley grabbed a catatonic Cyborg's arm as if he were a prized Christmas present. She poked at his metallic form. "Do you have an oven or something with all those other things? I can't cook very well."

"Raven, Star, at my side! We'll take them down all at once!"

"That would be a good plan in theory," Ivy started as if pondering over the idea, "but I'm sorry to say you've already lost, Robin."

"What!?" He knew he was a fool to turn away from them but he did it anyway to check on the remaining female Titans. Raven could only limp with the aid of steadying hand on a wall, suggesting that she had sustained many serious bruises from Harley, and the whole of the plant life had redirected its attention to Starfire and was consuming her once more, wrapping extra tightly around her hands and eyes to cut off circulation so she couldn't fight back.

Robin couldn't go to either of them without being taken down himself for revealing his back to the enemy.

He was the only one left. He was tired and on his second wind but he stood tall to engage Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn and his own teammate alone.

Cyborg's cannon was again charged and ready to fire but with an abrupt murmur of dismay Ivy told him to lower his weapon. She recalled her plants from Starfire and arranged them along the street walls in an artful form as her own personal signature.

"Wha- what are you doing!?" Though he was relieved to see that Starfire could breathe again he had to know.

"Your poor little team is all tuckered out," Harley explained and she shooed Cyborg along to get back to his friends. "You know we have a soft spot for you so we won't take it any further than this."

"That's right," Ivy said. She summoned the gym bag back down from its heights and tossed it out in peace.

He balked when he saw them raise their hands into the air.

"We surrender."

Robin was struck speechless but he recovered his voice soon enough. "You – _you can't surrender!_ We're not finished here yet! Starfire, Raven, get up!" He pulled Cyborg's face down to his level and began slapping it. "Come on, Cyborg," – he hissed in a very low voice – "_you can't do this to me!_"

"Oh we just wanted a little fun, Robbie, so we got what we wanted."

"Get up!" he demanded from them when they sat down to wait for police. "I'll take you both on myself!"

"Nah," Harley blew off easily and Ivy seconded that. They didn't rise to any of his threats and insults and stayed completely stationary until the police came to take them into custody. It was no trick. They held out their hands for the cuffs and sat down peaceably on the benches.

"Bye sweetie!" Harley called off to Robin cheerily, waving her hand in show.

"Kisses!" Ivy joined in, wishing him goodbye in the same mocking way.

Even Raven knew that a single sarcastic quip about if the Queens of Crime had always treated him like he was four would be far out of line to Robin now when the enemy had purposely thrown a fight. Any of the Titans would be stepping on coals if ever they were to talk to him now.

The girls could have stayed silent that entire night to him in that cold silence he was fronting but Starfire needed to speak.

"Cyborg, how might we repair him to full capacity? He is stuck…stuck like the way Mad Mod would stick-"

Raven made a cutthroat gesture to keep Starfire from uttering Beast Boy's name and bringing up another failure on Robin's part when he needed it least. The Titans all made their way Cyborg and eased the tallest Titan to the ground where they could examine him properly.

Robin expected nothing unusual but he was unpleasantly surprised when he realized that Ivy's dust had never infected a cybernetic human before. In humans the spores controlled minds but in machines…

Already green tendrils were curling through Cyborg's circuits and spreading rapidly from their point of entry. He was more machine than human and Ivy's plants tore machinery apart at the seams. Robin didn't need to check to know that he had no antidote on hand from his long time away from Gotham and he cursed himself for it now.

At best they had about ten minutes.


	6. Chapter 6

Took so long to think up what to do with this chapter but then I typed it all up in one night. Crazy.

Arual-san

* * *

It was a mindless repetitive task that any other teenager would've been accustomed to in fast food and Beast Boy kept at scrubbing in the same mindless way as was his task, much preferring superhero work. The stain seemed to be as much a part of the floor as the rest of it but he continued on, only half paying attention to Benji when he chattered away about anything and everything he could think of.

As higher-ups in the palace passed him by he tried to catch snippets of anything that could help. So often the aliens spoke in other languages but interplanetary grids on compact watches spoke for themselves. He kept his eye on them should someone ever dial for stats on Earth.

Beast Boy found his attention drifting back to the real world out of depression when the only person he could spy on in the hospice wing was a chubby old alien who snored much too loudly.

"So from what I've gathered," Benji continued, who knows how far into his ramblings no one listened to, "both the shipping and receiving ends of the teleportation devices are activated at the same time. It was why we were all sent in large groups as they shipped over new droids, because it didn't cost them any extra."

"Uh huh," Beast Boy said miserably, again cursing himself for falling for the allure of a pretty girl that was a trap. His eyes flicked to Brooke who was mixing the extracts of medicines with as much of a lack of interest as he.

Benji continued cheerily like he had a whole crowd of apt listeners, "The one true goal of that operation had to be just to start a takeover starting with one of the big-game cities. It had to be! I saw some of those shipments come in and wow, those droids just sprung to life out of little metal boxes! Put any contortionist I've seen to shame! I'll bet they're made in mass quantities on an assembly line and there was some sort of package deal. Can you imagine one of those annoying TV ad announcers advertising this stuff across the galaxy? Waste your enemies all for the low, low price of-!"

"$19.99, plus shipping and handling." Despite his bad mood, Beast Boy wouldn't be Beast Boy if he let a bad joke pass him by. "Company is not responsible for defective models that spring to life before activation and gut their owners."

Benji shut his mouth to hold back snickering but it came out anyway. As she cut strips of gauze, Brooke turned an eye on the boys in confusion, not recognizing that the bad joke was even a joke at all. She looked thoughtful as she continued her work but she was forced to drop the strip back to the table when she got caught up in a fit of coughing.

The fit lasted for more than two coughs and Beast Boy's slightly elated mood turned to worry. It was nowhere near life-threatening, the way it sounded, and though Brooke recovered just as quickly it still didn't sound good.

Though he could've done with a little less chatter on Benji's part, that Benji had brought up the subject got Beast Boy thinking about the specifics about all that had happened. He'd shown the droid that had defeated him his powers and if the operation's intent was to take down Earth from the inside with several armies of droids there had to have been a database of Earth's superheroes…even on minor ones like him. He hadn't been conscious when he'd been transported but from what he'd picked up in the separated quarters there were no new faces sent along with him. The students he'd been trying to protect had been spared in order for the fake to maintain its cover.

Beast Boy had been sent alone, his replacement had already been present, and that confused him. Simple slavery like the other students couldn't have been what a disreputable enterprise should have had planned for when they'd managed to snag a Super in their claws.

It was an incredible stroke of luck throughout all his bad luck but the only conclusion he could come to was that any specific transmission about him must have been lost along the airwaves when the two stations were millions of miles apart. However that luck couldn't possibly last for long when one of the higher ups employed of his own free will took the time to note how suspicious it was that he had been sent alone and recovered the misplaced transmission. He didn't know how long it would take for them to notice but that brought him to the other matter of the rings that were his cover. The batteries had hit their red zone and were dying on him quickly even after he'd taken the risk of shutting them off the rest of last night.

His cover wasn't going to last. The only question was in which way he would be exposed first.

Beast Boy's eyes narrowed, an uncommon storm of thinking pulsing in his irises. He was alone this time without his team and its strongest strategists and thinkers on his side and things could turn very ugly very fast when the cruel king learned of his identity.

Whatever else he wasn't, he was still a Titan and that meant looking out for himself until his team found him.

Benji continued on, never seeming to need to take a break, "So I guess we were just extras they needed to get rid of but at least these guys had some mercy when it would've been so much easier to just grind us into fertilizer, spread us over this planet's nutrient-starved soil and-"

There was no longer any humor when Beast Boy turned to him again, only dark suspicion, and Beast Boy picked up the nearest scalpel.

"You don't need to cut his finger too," Brooke said, heading off a possible scuffle. "Ben's not an android spying on us trying to get you to let your guard down by relaying a bunch of "secret" information. He just has no sense of tact."

Even if it was just a tiny cut, Benji had backed himself into a wall in anxiety for even that small bit of blood for confirmation. With the feeling that he could trust the real Brooke after all of the lies of her copycats, Beast Boy shelved the scalpel and promptly apologized.

"_Please_ don't _ever_ say that aloud again," Beast Boy sighed to Benji in any case. He didn't need any more complications if there was ever any small chance of Benji's realization happening if the slave's quarters ever got too crowded.

He was only just asking Benji about his steel-trap memory when he noticed Brooke pausing again to clutch her forehead.

"Hey, are you okay?" he had to ask even when his own situation was bad.

Her surprise at the sudden question perked up her to resume her work with greater speed than she'd had previously. "It's…nothing," she said quickly but for her next words she was a little more hesitant. "I just…have an immune system…that's a little weaker than most people's."

He'd noticed before that she'd been a little pale but had just assumed that had been a combination of stress, fatigue and a lack of makeup. "But we're on a different planet here with lots of different sicknesses that Earth has never seen!" he said, insulted, and a few of the workers raised their heads. "If that's the case than the _last_ place you should be is the frontlines where you could catch something!"

Again she was surprised for his concern but she quickly, quietly hissed, "Keep your voice down, Gar. You'll get us in trouble."

Beast Boy didn't resume raising his voice but he did toss his washcloth aside and started for her. He raised her level of surprise to near startling when he laid a palm over her forehead for a quick check of her temperature.

Looking away in shame, Brooke spoke first before he had the chance. "I get sick spells regularly so I can tell you this one isn't anything serious. It'll be a little harder without my meds but all I need to do is sleep this off and…"

He took in her slightly darkened under-eyes with suspicion. "How are you going to sleep it off if they're always assigning you the graveyard shift?"

Her lips pursed a small degree in that she'd been caught but she shook it off to uphold her pride. "I might not look like the strongest girl here but no stray breeze is going to just knock me over. I can take care of myself just fine." She huffed in a little ill humor. "Besides, it's not like we can just file a complaint with "Human Resources". I've got the skill set for this sort of business so this is where they'll keep me."

He was quiet for a time after her little speech, looking at her with continued scrutiny, but rather than cave in any way Brooke extended a hand and lightly pushed him back when he'd been a little too close and making her anxious with that look. "Please let me get back to my work. If I meet my quota today I'll get more hours for sleep tonight."

But Beast Boy didn't return to his post beside Benji. He took up a seat beside Brooke and grabbed up some of the medical utensils. "So teach me what you know and I'll trade jobs with you." He gave a mischievous grin. "They won't notice if you play hooky for just _one_ day."

She snatched back the measuring spoons to divvy out a dose of prescription syrup. "I can't do that."

"Oh what? This isn't some kind of academy girl loyalty thing to the higher power, is it?"

"If you _must_ know," Brooke said and throughout her dignified tone a little mischief came through as well, "it's because you have the stubby, undisciplined hands of boy who reads comic books all day."

Half of his face jerked back in the rapid analysis that was completely true and despite himself he fanned those hands out to see. When Beast Boy saw her continuing her work with a smug grin he came back, "No, I don't! How hard can some medicine stuff be?"

"Harder than you think."

"Yeah?" he said and not consenting to defeat he started on the gauze, ripping it into strips noticeably more ragged than her neat ones. "Then what kind of hands do you have that make you so qualified?"

"Piano player hands," she answered, pulling away one of her soft, long-fingered hands without a pause in her work. "Speedy, precise and with an innate sense of muscle memory. It would be great if we could switch hands but we can't so that's just how it is."

Beast Boy grumbled, "You can't go around gauging someone's entire performance just by that."

"I've found that a person's hands tell more about them than words can," she said, taking that comment when she could've left it alone. "Daddy's business partners all puff themselves up in the same way but I can always tell the difference between someone worthy of upholding a family name and a grown-up trust fund child that does nothing but sail the world in yachts. Am I wrong about you?"

His memory drifted back to the time when Cyborg had only been a disembodied head, the rest of him everywhere else, and he'd been trying to figure out what to do with the mechanical part that looked like a slice of pizza.

He sighed that she was right.

Brooke noticed that her analysis had made him a little down and so she asked him to pass her a bottle from the cabinet. Bold before in her convictions, her voice became shy, "Even if your hands are stubby, they're plenty worn in…so you must be good at something else."

"Yeah," And he flexed his hands a little for himself, "yeah, I _am_ good at something else."

She blushed a little when he took that praise of hers and her hand hesitated as if to move his chair away from her a little again to stave off some of that shyness. Though it was hard meeting someone new, Brooke let him help despite his less than perfect work.

Even though the cleaning crew wasn't very large they didn't stay in the hospice wing for long before it was off to the next place. Beast Boy followed Benji and the others like an obedient little servant when his mind was actually buzzing with anything but work.

"Hey Ben," Beast Boy hissed under his breath, interrupting the boy when he was always talking, "do you think you can turn on like a filter or something for all that information you pick up? Focus it on just one thing?"

"Umm…probably. What did you have in mind?"

Beast Boy looked over his shoulder for any ears that wouldn't wish him well and in the general direction of the communications room he'd marked. When it was clear, he continued, "I need you to pick up some of the print here and try to translate it. If I can find out where Earth is, find and reverse the route of the thing that sent me here, then I can get us home easy."

"Really?" Benji said naively, a little loudly and Beast Boy had to hush him. "You know where it is? You can get us through all the locked doors? Yeah, yeah, sure, I'll get started studying on that right away. I'll have to try to get Rory to trade shifts with me so I can get near the War Room so I can pick up some of the native language here and-"

"Please and thank you," Beast Boy said, wringing out his cloth.

The day progressed in pretty much the same manner, cleaning, pretending to care that everything was spotless when the boys were really doing all that they could to get information on the place. Though they were worked for hours on end without breaks to Beast Boy being a servant definitely beat being an academy student. Each boy was so focused that they didn't realize it was lunchtime until they were there in their seats.

"Is this mucus?" Beast Boy asked in disgust, face drooping when he couldn't separate his fork from the sticky mess on his plate. "Because I'm a vegan and that includes any uh…animal byproducts and…"

Beaming, Brooke slid into the empty seat across from them. "That…thing you said before, it was a joke right?"

"Uh…what thing?" Beast Boy wondered if he'd have to do the blood test again to see if she'd been replaced for a third time.

"That thing about the robot infomercial," she said as if she'd figured out something great. "You weren't just being weird; you were trying to be funny."

His look of disbelief warped further to include some degree of insult. "Yeah…that's kinda my thing."

"Well…well, I get it now," she continued excitedly. "It's funny because of the irony, because a company would _always_ be liable for the unintended death of a client. Because it's bad business. Because that would never happen. I get it!"

Beast Boy continued gaping at her as if she was from Mars and she finally noticed.

"What?"

"I know high society sucks out the fun out of everything but I didn't think that it was _this_ bad. Don't you academy girls have any sense of humor at all?"

"Wha- bu- I have a sense of humor!" The insult was hers now. "I read the comic sometimes in the Wall Street Journal and – and I thought it was really funny that one time our Physics professor said that this Doric column was Ionic because it was composed out of ions." When her point wasn't received she puffed in embarrassment. "Stop looking at me like that! You – your joke wasn't _that_ funny anyway!"

But, when she'd gotten so riled when he'd said nothing, Beast Boy started snickering.

"Stop laughing at me!"

"Ah come on, laughing is good for you. Example," he said and he slapped his unappetizing snot meal right into Benji's face. The mucus was so thick that the tray oozed down his face without separating from it and his glasses were caked so that they couldn't see his eyes.

Brooke's eyes pinched shut in delight and she placed a couple fingers to her smile.

"What, that's it?" he asked and he turned to his new friend to sculpt the ooze coated to his face.

"No, no stop!" she half-pleaded trying to shield her eyes out of strict discipline. "It's not becoming of a lady for her laugh to rise any louder than a whisper or continue any longer than what's required. I…I can't!"

But despite her attempts to look away, the temptation was too great and she peeked between her fingers when the sculpture was reaching its end. Beast Boy finished his creation with a final swipe of snot and presented the slimy caricature of Richard Nixon. He jiggled Benji and the slime of the big-nosed face jiggled with him. He said very seriously, "I am _not_ a nasal discharge."

This time it was far harder for Brooke to hold back and he grabbed her hands so that she couldn't force her mouth shut. When the dam broke her sudden shriek of laughter turned every head in the room and once she'd started she couldn't stop after it had been pent up for so long.

His work was done so Beast Boy let her go and smiled when nearly everyone threw them annoyed glares and demanded the girl to shut up. He went to bed a little bit happier that night but the same could not be said of the girl's quarters that had to tolerate Brooke's random bursts of giggles throughout.


	7. Chapter 7

Well, I was having some writer's block with this one and I had finals too but here you go guys. This was another one of my late night possessed write-a-thons so don't be surprised if there are some errors my sleep-depraved mind didn't catch, haha!

Extra long chappie! Read and review and enjoy!

Arual-san

* * *

At once Robin's angry thoughts were sidetracked when his friend was in danger. He flipped on his communicator at once to find that Batman was nowhere on the radar and that Batgirl was of course still in school. He didn't have time to see if she'd answer it or not while in the middle of class so he did a quick manual override of the communicator's tame vibrate mode to one that would most likely shock her out of her seat.

Robin didn't leave her message but a text when there were ears everywhere in the school.

Seconds ticked by and the tendrils curled further and deeper along into Cyborg's system. He stared dizzily into nothingness as the other Titans used Robin's fine tools to stab and kill the vines from penetrating anywhere important like his central processing unit. They all worked feverishly to keep the deadly plant at bay, when it re-grew and snapped at them, for as long as they could but when seconds turned into minutes worry began to set in.

"She'll come!" Robin said to convince his teammates when the situation was dire. "She'll come!"

"She's here." And Batgirl came to an Olympic landing right behind them. Trained like she was, she didn't waste a second to wonder over what trouble Robin had gotten himself into this time or who the new faces were. "What do you need?"

"Plant killer now!" Forgoing manners when the plant was rapidly turning his friend's blue circuits green and cracking the gears, Robin held out his hand for it without looking back. The instant he got the tiny vial he opened the core drive in Cyborg's chest and dumped its contents. He snapped the lid back shut and held Cyborg down as the antidote began to spread.

"Okay you two," Batgirl said at once to the female Titans, "Ivy's plants always go down kicking and screaming so be ready to hold him once-"

Before she could finish a horrible screeching filled the air, what could only be the sound of the genetically altered plant, and the force of which it rocked Cyborg's body nearly sent Robin crashing into the nearest wall. The girls all grabbed a limb before that could happen and held tight. The plant thrashed in pain inside the metallic teen but throughout its pain had the intelligence to see that it couldn't throw all of them at once. It redirected its strength from all over to its roots in a single arm and used it to slug Batgirl. She got back up just as fast and the sudden change of view made her notice something else.

"Watch your leg, Red!" she warned, pinning the flailing arm down again.

In that same beat Starfire noticed and blasted the tendril that had been curling around her long purple boot. She blasted a couple more of the sneaky roots that had been wrapping around Raven's cape and every other one that tried the same on the others and as she did Cyborg's struggles were winding down.

"All right," Robin breathed out when the vines finally grayed and withered. "We got to it in time. I'll start up the reboot." He busied himself with that while the girls let go of Cyborg in relief. When Robin wasn't going to make introductions Batgirl gave the other two an inviting smile.

Starfire took that invitation as soon as it was made. "Greetings Batgirl, friend of Robin. I am most pleased to meet your acquaintance." She took up Batgirl's gloved hand and shook it with vigor. "There is the custom of hand shaking to be done, correct?"

"Um…sure," Batgirl said and, although it was a little weird for her, her smile continued on. "So the Jump City Gazette says that you were…err…Stormfire?"

"My name is Starfire," the girl corrected, finishing her handshake and trying to hand it off to Raven.

Unable to resist some curiosity, Batgirl asked, "Your parents aren't hippies or something, are they?"

"Hippie? I am not familiar…Raven, will you please tell me the meaning of this word?"

"You're not a hippie love-child, Star," Raven assured, not completely humorlessly. She turned her attention to Batgirl. "It's a direct translation of her name from her native Tamaranean into English."

"And you must be Raven," Batgirl continued when Raven accepted her hand from Starfire and gave it a quick shake. "You don't know how surprised I was to see Robin's signal in range. He must've forgotten his suitcase full of hair gel." She chuckled at her own joke. "So what brings you all to Gotham? Not that I don't appreciate the help but…hey wait, where's Greenie?"

"You just answered your own question," Raven answered. "We're trying to find out the same thing."

"Huh? But I just saw Beast Boy the other day. The jet didn't have an ejection seat malfunction, did it?"

"As if it would ever be that simple," Raven sighed, vaguely wondering what was the worst regular high school students would've had to deal with. "At some point when you met him he…wasn't himself."

"Wait – what? When?"

"That's a lot of W's," Raven said but before she could begin to say Batgirl had already reached that conclusion. Blue eyes went wide beneath the cowl and she started up, "You…you mean when he came back from investigating the girl's academy?" It was the only logical conclusion but she still said it with surprise. "He was…when he was acting all nauseous and – ooo where's that droid, I want to pound it!"

"Back in the jet," Robin replied when everything was going smoothly with Cyborg's reboot. "What's left of it anyway."

"Well now that you've decided to join the conversation you've reminded me that I want to pound you too." She clenched her fist but didn't move to do it after such a dire situation. "I swear, I swear to any god out there that's listening, you and Batman have a sixth sense for the absolute _worst_ times to call me! _Every_ time! Do you hear me, Robin?"

"_Yeess_," he dragged on, hopelessly awaiting the start of another chew out.

"Don't you take that tone with me! I was _sooo_ close, Casey had cornered me into the lockers, he was finally going to kiss me…then your little call practically electrocutes me! Do you know how hard it is to get a date with Casey Newman?"

Without anything else to do, Starfire and Raven just hung around on the sidelines as Robin and his old teammate made conversation. It wasn't exactly under the nicest conditions should they meet up again but although they were fighting none of it was all that serious.

"Not really," Robin said with some sarcasm. "Is it hard?"

"As a matter of fact-"

"As much as I enjoy listening to this…" Robin held a hand for Batgirl to stop just as Cyborg's reboot completed. His system flashed its bright blue hue throughout the cracks in its components. Everything had appeared normal thus far but the Titans only knew all too well that any serious internal damage may only show itself presently. They waited silently, half-expecting sparks to fly from some damaged part only Cyborg himself knew how to fix. His artificial red eye flashed on first, his real one a moment later, and he vaguely surveyed them all.

"Cyborg?" Starfire said when she couldn't stand to be silent. "Cyborg…you are…undamaged?"

So fast that it seemed to flash, Cyborg's face broke out into a wide and glowing smile like nothing bad had ever happened. "You know, I'm really in the mood for waffles right now! Belgium waffles…with strawberries and whipped cream! Gotham got any good breakfast joints?" he asked of Robin and Batgirl specifically. "You guys get a superhero discount here?"

Batgirl stifled a little snort in her hand. "You know, I must be losing my touch to have this surprise me. Your guy got hit with some of Ivy's dust so he's going to be decidedly uh…_cheerful_ until it wears off."

And, as Batgirl had called, Cyborg was in plenty good spirits as his immune system worked off the remainder of the spores. Listening to him jabber away over the intercom, the girls slumped in the seats of the jet for a few minutes to recover as he routed their path to Birnamwood Academy. If it were at all possible, Robin became more silent than before, stewing in anger about how things had gone down, how Harley and Ivy would never let him live that failure down and spread the tale down to the last lonely sewer rat of Gotham.

Although to a lesser effect, he was his mentor in that his silence could be more intimidating than anything he could articulate into words.

They could only expect to draw attention when they'd stepped through the double doors of the academy but what they didn't quite expect was just how starved the boys there were for the appearance of the opposite sex.

"Hey, Bright Eyes," said one, making puckering motions with his lips to Starfire. "Love that short little skirt of yours."

"I'm in love! I think that dark-looking one cast a spell on me!"

"How about a date baby? I've got a great ride!"

"Did it hurt when you two fell from heaven?" The boy made like he was fainting from the sight of them.

Nothing diminished Cyborg's cheer but Starfire was confused and tried for courtesy when the boys were crowding the halls and making it difficult to walk. Raven for her part seemed merely annoyed at all the catcalls. A nerve started to jump on Robin's forehead when the boys hitting on his girlfriend was endless on top of everything else. The Titans kept their distance when he could finally boil over at any second.

"Come on, Star," Raven said when their presence there was causing Robin's temper to rise. "Let's check out the girl's academy."

The girls headed out despite how the many academy boys pleaded against it but it only did a small thing to make Robin feel better when the crowds cleared and they were allowed free passage through the halls.

"Ha, hah, isn't life grand?" Cyborg said loftily without expecting an answer as the spores still continued to wear off. "Nice sunny weather without a cloud in that blue, blue sky right Robin?" He looked to the wide windows to that sky and a couple of spring bunnies and gave a content sigh. "Yo, Robin?"

But Robin had gone too long with his anger rising up to dangerous levels and when he saw the opportunity pass his way he relieved it right there by driving his fist into Regis's smug face. The boy was sent reeling into the wall.

"Hey man," Cyborg pulled Robin back after he made a fake lunge forward just to see the bully squirm, "you can't just go around hitting people!"

"Oh, he _deserved_ it," Robin said darkly, looking down on the bewildered boy and his cronies that had made Beast Boy their new punching bag during their stay. Those pampered wastes of space deserved to be missing more than his friend and slugging the leader for it siphoned off a great deal of his anger, though plenty still remained.

"Reg," Bradley asked with the same bewilderment his friend showed, "what on Earth did you do to make Robin mad at you?"

"I don't know!" Regis cried out in perfect honesty when he'd only had a line of exchange with Dick Grayson's alter ego. The hit on his eye would surely go black but he quivered in fear as if expecting the famous Robin to finish him off there like he knew he could.

"Go crying to Daddy and sue me," Robin finished, never once caring that some of the crowd that had been present before had returned at his action. It was his last mocking statement to Regis and the boy got to shaking legs under that glare and made a break for it.

His friends, Chad and Bradley, made run after with him.

"You two aren't going anywhere." And Robin didn't even have to raise his voice or turn their way for the two larger-set boys to stop in their tracks. "You're witnesses to the operation that went down at this school. You're going to tell me everything you know."

* * *

With Batman gone on whatever mission with the League, Robin had decided to assist Batgirl in patrolling the only city he knew more thoroughly than Jump, anything to keep himself in motion and reinforce the fact that although his team's recent failure would be spread faster by word of mouth than any newspaper could boast those who overheard had only better ever repeat it in hushed whispers he would never overhear. The supercomputer back at the cave was fully manned with the others as they searched for leads on the whereabouts of their fifth member. The first time Robin heard his communicator go off he assumed was about an update on that subject.

He blinked when he read the text "LMBO!" from Aqualad.

But then the texts of the same ambiguous nature started pouring in from Titans all over the nation never giving him more than an hour's rest. He put up with it longer than he should've had to but finally, when Robin couldn't stand one more call interrupting him in his work and making him look like a fool in front of the GCPD and crooks, he called back the last person that had texted him.

"All right, Melvin, what's going on?"

"Hrrkk!" At the sight of him the small pigtailed girl tucked her hands behind her back and gave a sheepish smile.

"You know that this is a secure line and is only supposed to be used in emergencies," he continued patiently, trying to enforce proper behavior to a future Titan even if the present Titans were currently breaking character to act like immature teenagers.

"I know Mr. Robin sir. I'm sorry," she said but her posture was a little too straight and she shook slightly.

"I thought I told everyone not to call me "sir"." He took in the strained expression on her face with some scrutiny. "Is something funny?"

Robin just saying that aloud was enough to let a few giggles escape from the little girl. Melvin however was the leader of the kiddie Titans so that was all she permitted herself, an effect somewhat ruined by Timmy and Teether going off in laughter in the background.

"Uh…uh…no! Bobby's just trying to make balloon animals and they keep getting popped on his claws."

"Then why the text? Why is everybody-?" And as if to prove his point, his communicator went off again with a message from Argent saying she'd just squirted cherry cola out of her nose from laughing so hard. He was beginning to get annoyed at being left out of the loop.

"Gotta go!" Melvin said, ill-equipped to think of an excuse on such short notice. "Timmy's having another tantrum!"

"But he's laughing."

"Nuh-uh, he's just – he's – it's reverse ci…simology! He's trying to trick everybody! It's the fearsome fours! Bye!" And before he could get a straight answer out of the child the screen went black. It had been a slow night just taking down a handful of no-name thugs and it seemed that without Beast Boy there to proclaim the remainder of the night was to be spent with pizza and movies the universe didn't seem inclined to throw anything terrible and unexpected his way. Approaching the cave, he dialed Cyborg's number on his cycle's screen.

Instead of being greeted with a face when the top was flipped Robin saw quick, slanted flashes of the three of them run by as they argued and tried to force the communicator on the other. He nearly got motion sickness from how often they nearly dropped it.

"_Guuys?_"

"Ah, weak! I thought I told the others to keep this under wraps! Here, you-!"

"I refuse!" Starfire cried back. "I cannot possibly!"

After taking much longer than it should've taken to answer a phone, Cyborg and Starfire simultaneously ganged up on Raven, easily the most stoic of the group, grabbing up either arm and forcing her into the chair that Cyborg had previously occupied. The two then disappeared from sight.

"Umm…hey," Raven said with some hesitation, her poker face betraying her slightly by her lips tantalizingly trying to keep from smiling. She couldn't look directly at her leader and instead focused somewhere around his chin.

If there was anyone that would give him a straight answer it was Raven and Robin pressed on in waning patience, "Is there something going on that I should know about?"

She seemed to have the exact same, albeit much more toned down, strained expression that Melvin had worn and it was as if simply looking at him was causing her to react as such. Raven hesitated to answer but then sidetracked the question to more important and sobering matters. "We've been tracking Beast Boy's location for hours and we've narrowed it down to a small quadrant of space. We're ready to go when you are."

"Good work. Any further information you've uncovered?"

"These don't look like particularly welcoming planets so it would be best if we didn't split up," she said. "You really shouldn't be looking at a screen when you're driving and no I don't care how well you know the road. We'll talk when you reach the cave. Raven out."

The three were alone again but nevertheless Cyborg felt the need to look around his shoulder in the cave that held nothing but darkness and shadows when they were doing something they shouldn't.

"So what do you say ladies?" He flexed a finger over a certain web tab. "Ninth time's a charm?"

"Yes, yes," Starfire cheered like the footage was new, "please proceed once more!"

Cyborg clicked it open and the map of the solar system that was their next mission flashed away, something they'd worked on for so many hours that the image burned into the backs of their eyes, and Cyborg's YouTube account appeared with a copied surveillance tape that skyrocketed in hits every time they clicked the refresh button. He tapped the full-screen button. Full-screen always seemed to make it funnier.

A black and white feed of a warehouse lit up the computer screen. There were several long shelves that lined the widely-spaced warehouse all with crates of varying sizes, some too big for four grown men to carry. Poison Ivy lovingly packaged plump orange pumpkins and gestured for full boxes of them to be loaded onto a truck by her hired thugs and the male couriers that bore strangely vacant expressions. The two female employees, who her spores did not affect, appeared to be tied up and gagged in the supply closet.

"A gas that mercilessly attacks the circulatory system," Ivy said of her newest creation as she caressed the cheek of a worker who was ironically like a zombie on Halloween night. "It's really a shame the board recognizes my face far too well to ever let me past the front gates even in disguise. You'll be a dear and deliver these, won't you?" She shrugged when he was too dazed to respond.

A couple of her hired help who seemed to be friends spared her a look as they loaded the pumpkins.

"Sooo…we're kinda used to working with Two-Face," the squatter of the two started up in favor of getting some information. "You know, the usual old rob the banks and the life and death flip the coin thing with Bats."

"Yeah, so what's the cash out on this one? Any "tips" beyond the normal salary?"

"Harvey's an awful boring piece of work, isn't he?" She gave a dignified huff. "Kill off so many boards and there's bound to eventually be one worth the pretty penny they cost, one that won't bulldoze the last stretch of wildflowers in this dying metal heap of a city."

When Ivy didn't elaborate further the two exchanged dubious looks when their boss's only motive for her crimes appeared to be killing off those who had first decided to kill off her precious plants. Gotham criminals weren't known for being of sound mind.

"The Heart of the City Garden is no longer enough to satisfy you?"

With a sulky expression crossing her fine features, Ivy crossed her arms and looked sidelong to a point of the warehouse where shadow was cast. Batman seemed to materialize out of that blackness and a ten-year-old Robin came to stand at his side.

Looking in from the cave, Starfire gave a tiny squeal. "Aww, small Robin is a most precious little heart of sweetness that I wish to hug!"

"Shhh!" the other two hushed at her and Cyborg turned up the volume.

"How long until that garden is plowed to the ground as well?" Ivy questioned in a wry way of the superhero. "How long until every tree in this urban jungle is gone and you all choke on the smog this city has created? It's a wonder why I don't just leave Gotham all together."

"No one is getting out of this warehouse with those pumpkins," he told her when he'd deliberately placed himself between Ivy and the only loading dock exit. "It would be in your best interests to stop this now."

"Yeah!" Robin seconded and the young boy was restless, bouncing on his feet like staying still was an impossible task.

"I didn't go and break out of Arkham just to be sent back without a fuss. It's rather dull in that place-" – she slipped out vials from the invisible folds in her leotard and cracked them open underfoot – "when my babies can't spread their roots to their heart's desires."

"I gave you fair warning," Batman said in a low rumble, reaching for his utility belt.

"Yeah, we warned you, plant-lady!" Robin echoed with pent up energy winding him up more every second and now even the little movement of bouncing was unbearable for another second. "Hai-ya!" Like a loaded spring, he was a flash of light onto the nearest bad guy.

Watching him pack ten punches into two seconds, Ivy's eyebrows rose a little. "Just because you're the almighty Batman doesn't mean you're too good to pick a copy of Good Parenting Weekly. It's a very bad thing to let your kid eat all their Halloween candy for dinner."

The smile Raven had been trying so hard to hide surfaced once more.

Batman narrowed a critical eye in the boy's direction but his new partner seemed oblivious when he was whizzing through all his trained routines in fast forward as the grown men all struggled and fell over themselves to keep up. Batman hadn't the time and Alfred hadn't the spare youth in him to keep up with an already energetic ten-year-old when there was free candy to be had in only one short night spent trick or treating. He wouldn't have been able to pick Robin out of all the scores of other children in the Scarecrow costume he'd worn that night if not for their communicators. It was just an undoable task to monitor the boy's every move that whole night.

And because the Bat hadn't been able to control every little thing he was stuck with a junior partner on a sugar-high.

Poison Ivy gave a smile that made her red lips glimmer in the lamplight. She lifted a pumpkin high so that it seemed to replace the head on her shoulders and she teased, "Fear me for I am Jack, the Pumpkin King."

Batman's hand was still on his utility belt and when the poisonous gas was inside the pumpkins he couldn't reach for his signature Batarangs. He knew well that her offing him was always the higher priority over some stuffy suits. He might've had the one exit blocked but Ivy had several boxes of pumpkins she could rupture with a simple push. The vines engorging at her feet and the plant lady herself had to wait.

He threw out a scattering of gray pellets her way.

Ivy remained in place, unimpressed in those few seconds. "Don't you know by now that I have an immunity to tox-?"

The greatest detective would have never overlooked such an integral detail. Ivy had a second of surprise to register before she found that they weren't the same knock-out pellets he'd used on other criminals but ones that exploded into blinding flashes of light.

Ivy cried out in temporary blindness and the pumpkin she'd been holding went flying. Her vines screeched and limped out of the way beside their master and Batman swiftly improvised with a small tranquilizer dart to pin the pumpkin's stem to the door of the truck. His way was clear to the rest of the pumpkins. If he couldn't destroy them then he could only make them inaccessible to the enemy.

It had been a prototype back then but Batman let his Ice Batarang fly.

Once it hit the bottom of the trunk thick ice crystals swallowed the cartons into great boulders of ice. There was no Firefly to melt it or Bane to crush it so that was how the pumpkins were going stay and Ivy scowled throughout her clearing vision that she'd not taken either of them on as a partner.

"_Cool!_" beamed Robin at the sight, taking a second out from his manic fighting. He checked all over his belt's compartments. "Where's mine?"

"I've only developed a small batch of them," Batman explained, projecting calmness into his voice he hoped his partner would pick up on."They're not a completely stabilized chemical mix." He let loose another Ice Batarang, aiming for the wheels of the truck just to be safe. "I still need to put them through a few more trials before I-"

"Ha-ha!" Robin exclaimed, with his amazing reflexes springing up and grabbing the weapon as it whizzed through the air.

As Batman looked on in rising irritation his partner threw the Batarang in the exact same place it would've landed had it been Batman's throw. Still, since it was him that made the wheels ice up, Robin became his own cheering section before he went back to beat up on some more baddies.

"_Robin_…" Batman said lowly, warningly.

Poison Ivy had recovered and attacked Batman and her vines slammed into Robin from behind, sending him reeling across the floor. It was a heavy hit to his small body but Batman couldn't help when he had his hands full with Poison Ivy. Robin groaned on the floor and crouched into himself as if it could make the pain go away and in that moment of weakness the sentient plant unbuckled his belt.

"That's mine!" he cried out in anger and he snapped back to his feet. "Give it back!"

The vines slithered away but nothing could be faster than Robin that night. He ducked in and out of tendrils that tried to stop him and he blocked blows like he was fighting any other opponent, none quite as skilled as he was at present but well on his way. Robin took down any vine that got in his way until he reached the one that had stolen his belt and he hacked it down.

The belt dropped to the ground below and Robin dropped from the mutilated plant after it.

One of the thugs was closer and he grabbed it up first but before he could begin to taunt Robin whacked his smaller Bo into the man's knees. Again he tried to catch his belt but another thug was taller and beat him to it. That one got slugged in the gut. Finally the dim-witted hired help thought to hand it off to the largest one of them all that was built like a human tank. The large thug didn't need to shift position at all. He only needed to hold the belt above his head and it was far out of reach to the junior crime-fighter.

That didn't stop Robin. He jumped after it in the air several times more than needed, never tiring or running out of insults for the mammoth thug. Just when the thugs had started to chuckle at his efforts Robin improvised with something he never could've fit into his belt.

He hurled a wooden crate into the thug's ugly face and sent him to the ground with a crash.

"Who's the tough guy now?!" Robin demanded of them for daring to treat him like an ordinary kid and not the apprentice of the Bat. He released similar capsules to Batman's that instead expanded into entrapping nets on contact on those that remained standing. Before the largest one could get back to his feet, Robin pounced on him with a flurry of punches to his already crate-impressioned face.

By now, though they had seen it so many times before, Cyborg and Starfire, even Raven couldn't keep her emotions bottled up tight, were rumbling with laughter over how their tough and serious leader had been as a child. Once upon a time he'd just been as normal and fun as the next one.

The fight wound down until it was only Batman and Robin against Poison Ivy and with all her plants mutilated at her feet and her plan trapped in ice that refused to melt, with her wrist crossbow as her only means of defense, she was declawed. The police soon filed into the warehouse, only ever seeming to catch up on the leads when the show was through, but they cleaned up and did the paperwork that Batman didn't.

"We'll find some method of disposing of those little plants of Ivy's safely," Commissioner Gordon said as he waved his men to back the trunk out of the loading dock with caution. "How did you manage to track her down so quickly?"

The two men went over the specifics of the case and what else they could do to strengthen the lax security on Arkham Asylum that seemed to lose its inmates almost as soon as it had obtained them. At first Robin had stood tall beside his mentor but as the conversation dragged on the inevitable crash came and he noticeably drooped in both expression and posture until he completely dropped out of sight.

The commissioner paused in his next statement to see the soon-to-be-famous Boy Wonder passed out on the floor and snoring. He was on duty but he gave a small chuckle. "Rough night for the little guy? You know, I have a daughter about his age."

Batman had relayed information when it was concerning business but he was silent now.

"We're…never talking about this again, are we?" the commissioner assumed when Batman gave him no reply about the subject and refused to let a single tick of embarrassment show on his face over the less than flawless performance of his new partner.

The funny parts were through and where Starfire had rolled her head back laughing she opened her eyes then to take in the final scene. Before that though she saw the upside-down image of the current Robin standing silently on the steps that led to the manor. He'd returned via an alternate route so he could see what they were up to and he was seeing it now, Starfire just didn't know for how long.

Robin hadn't noticed her moment-long attention and in that moment Starfire could see his thoughtful expression as he stared at the screen.

With a certain gentleness that was difficult to envision on such a dark and imposing superhero, Batman gathered his sleeping ward into his arms without disturbing him. He gave a slight nod of the head to the commissioner and walked away from the scene.

When Starfire hazarded a quick peek back to the stairs Robin was gone.


	8. Chapter 8

Oy, this chapter didn't come easy, not to mention that this month has been full of suckage of many forms. Buuuut now I've got an awesome new computer I'm borrowing from my brother when he's over in South Korea for a year. Coolness.

I was feeling bad for not updating for so long, especially when so many new faces favorited this story and its prequel so I put away some time today to finish up Chapter 8. Shout outs to Catchandelier, Sigma Glory, art-is-a-bang-yeah, titansfan1211, wingedblackwolf, IzumiTheMoogle, Hinaura, AbsolutAnda, blueoctober, and iceyxstrawberry. And you too, Ani, even if you're a little late joining the party. :D Wow, that's a lot of names! Thanks everyone!

So yeah, sorry if there's been lacking action in BB's scenes but I needed to do it this way so he could meet Brooke. Things won't be going so smoothly for them from this point on.

Chapter 8 dedication to Indy: Sep. 1, 1997 – Feb. 2, 2010. You were my dear, sweet fluff puppy who was a member of the family, not just a pet. You were one of a kind, the pick of the litter, and I'm glad you were with us as long as you were. I love and miss you so, SO much. ;_;

Arual-san

* * *

It wasn't so much that the vase was a particularly heavy thing to move, more that it was an awkward thing when two people could have fit inside. Even with his scrawny build, Beast Boy could manage moving it. It had been a slower day in the hospice and, despite her dedication to the satisfying service she could provide, Brooke had shoved her shift onto someone else and she held up the other end.

"So, so, your academy was in California?" Brooke asked, reciting what she already knew. "And was it co-ed? I've never been in co-ed before. I hardly ever even see boys except at Daddy's dinner parties and then I usually get stuck with that idiot Walter and…"

"Uh sure, "co-ed"," Beast Boy said, smiling, picking that small bit out. It wasn't the best thing to be on the other end of a one-sided female gossip fest but when Brooke got caught up in one it seemed that some of her shyness from before disappeared. That could only be a good thing.

Nodding along to what she said gave him a moment to think about that bit he'd picked out from her conversation and what it meant. Even if Beast Boy no longer had the standard academy uniform like Brooke did, she still assumed that was where he was from and not many academy boys led a double life the way he did.

_And not many of them have green skin either, _Beast Boy thought to himself a little wryly when a glance to his rings showed that the final red bar was blinking. _This thing's going to die. Today, maybe in an hour or two. _

While he'd been staying on the planet, Beast Boy had spent more time with Brooke than with anyone else and it suddenly brought him a little pang of hurt to see the trust there as she talked. He hadn't technically been lying when he'd used his friends' real names instead of their aliases or when he'd toned down the intensity of the things they went through but he was still skimming the bare truth, trying to ease her into it.

But was there really any kind of way to have anyone calmly accept that a person was a superhero that safeguarded the world every day? There were any number of ways someone could react and it was why Robin didn't encourage friendships outside of the Titans. At the thought, all the negative consequences seemed to flood in all at once, in his mind but with Robin's strict narration. And of course, he could never visit that particular subject without thinking of Terra and what would happen if ever the calcification of her body was ever to be reversed. Was he betraying her memory by even thinking about another girl so soon after she had gone?

If the hologram wasn't still going, Brooke would have seen his pointy ears droop a little.

_Oooh, what am I even _thinking_ about this for?_ Beast Boy scolded himself when he was sure the others would if they were there. _What happened to priorities, man? Once whoever's in charge here figures out who I am I'm going to be sunk. Who knows what's going to happen? Why couldn't Benji get through his assignment faster? Why couldn't-?_

Brooke came back into his thoughts like a half-imagined dream.

"Gar? Gar, hold on, stop!" And Brooke parked her feet when they reached a fork in the hallway, kicked at his feet to stop their motion when his body was too slow to react. He screeched to a stop a pace ahead of her and only just too soon from plowing into a couple of guards.

"Heh, sorry," Beast Boy tried, baring a nervous smile when the guards glared and continued on their way.

"Were you listening to me?" Brooke asked and this time she didn't give him warning when she picked up their walk again.

"S-sure, I was!" His nervous smile toned down a little when it was for her but it still remained. He'd been thinking a lot of thoughts, serious things that stressed him from the inside out, but those thoughts had been condensed into only a couple minutes.

"Oh yeah? Then what did I-?"

"Nevermind that, I – I've got a new joke! It's a great one!" That was the thing to say to distract Brooke when his brand of comedy was something totally new for her. She waited eagerly while Beast Boy's face remained frozen in his last exclamation: he had nothing and only seconds to think. " Uh…uh…

But, after he was sure of his footing on the stairs and looked back to his side, he didn't see her there.

"Uh…Brooke?" He jerked his head to the other end of the vase and just glimpsed a flash of brown hair disappear to the other end. He did it again with the same result. Was this some stuffy academy girl's strange idea of a joke? Being faster than him? Soon enough Beast Boy didn't see the flash of brown hair at all. Had she somehow been able to predict what side he would shift over to before he did? Was he really getting that slow?

He didn't realize it at once but he still came to it. He ducked to the bottom part of the vase where Brooke lay crouched, trying not to snicker too loudly and give herself away.

"Demerit for che-!" But Beast Boy was stopped short when Brooke gave a surprised yelp like a cat that had its tail trod on. She bumped her head on the base of the vase and unbalanced the whole of it, sending it toppling into Beast Boy. He gave an echoing yelp to match hers and stumbled back to keep it aloft. Brooke popped back up to help just as soon as she recovered and she yanked it back to her side too harshly. They had to step in tune to the wobbles a couple times but they steadied it.

The two shared a nervous laugh and started up their walk again.

"So, Brooke, listen umm…" he started out and, even as he was saying the words, all the troubles that could result from it waged war in his head. It didn't help that she gave a smile of complete trust just after they'd tamed the wily vase together. "There's something I need to tell you…something important."

"Is it something about the-" She looked to see if there were any spying ears and whispered, "_Escape plan?_"

"N-not exactly," he murmured more to the vase than to her. "Well…you know about that whole android thing that went down at your school, how those girls weren't what they seemed like on the outside. I…I mean," – Beast Boy gave a stilted laugh when there was nothing to laugh about – "_your_ double was like the complete opposite of the real thing. That droid was a total flirt that would've jumped on the first guy that-"

"You're not…" The cheer had gone from her and her already pale face paled further.

"Brooke?"

But her gloom was a false mask and she removed it in an instant. "A secret agent super spy, are you?"

"H-hey…" And his expression flipped just as fast. "You're not far enough in your comedy training to go skipping levels and pulling a fake-out. Telling bad jokes is like…an art or something." He felt himself moving to elaborate but he shook that thought free before it could drag him along. "_Anyway_…it's just…" He breathed and got it out in one rush, "I'm _not_ who you think I am."

Brooke didn't make a move to pull any other masks atop her face. She kept smiling as if she was playing along with a story. "Garfield Logan, age fourteen, freshmen at Birnamwood Academy, Room-"

"_Yeeeah_…there's a couple other things…" He had thought that his tongue could stop recoiling in fear once he'd said that opening statement but still it retreated and refused to work at normal speed. "I-"

But then suddenly Brooke's attention was no longer on him at all and it was no struggle to see why. Serious voices rang out from the halls ahead of them: ones that they recognized as the same guards they'd nearly plowed into. More voices sounded from behind.

"You mean we've got a Super here?"

"I just saw the kid! Fan out!"

Concern pulled at Brooke's forehead over it but nothing more when she thought it was merely someone else getting in trouble. Had she shifted her gaze only slightly she'd have seen how much greater an effect it had on Beast Boy. She didn't have the time to pick up the conversation again before Beast Boy, shifting between his feet like he was on hot coals, pushed the vase into an extreme tilt. Before Brooke could react, the boy flipped it over onto her in one fluid moment.

Not at his most graceful with the awkward piece, he managed to bang Brooke's head again before he caught the lips of the now upside down vase and lowered it to the floor.

"Oww-oww!" Brooke's voice echoed inside the vase. "My brain is a vital organ so could you please stop…wait, what are you even-!?"

"Uh…uh…" Beast Boy stalled, looking to either direction of the hall for approaching guards. He pushed the vase along the ground to a more natural looking spot. "Hide and seek? No, no, that's for kids!" A group of guards, all armed, flashed by one end of the hallway. The few options he had whipped through his mind at light-speed as his voice absentmindedly did the explaining. "Err…it's another joke, yeah that's it!"

"What?" He could envision her pressing her hands to the vase's walls. "But I don't get it, how is this-?"

"_Goo_…" Beast Boy squeaked at the guards' shouts. His feet pivoted back and forth, never deciding on a direction when at any moment they could come spilling out from one side. His left half wanted to go one way, his right the other, but even his genetic composition wouldn't allow him to split into two.

"It _is_ funny…or will be, _really_," he insisted when he had only seconds. "You just have to wait here and be uh, quiet, _really_ quiet, okay? Until things calm down." But Beast Boy didn't take the extra second to hear her response, assumed she would obey when she clammed up. All that he had time to do before the heavy footfall of guards turned into the corridor was to put a cloth over the unpainted base of the vase.

He needed to disappear and he did the closest thing. His feet zoomed off from the ground as he morphed into the first tiny insect he could think of. So what if the planet's fauna probably didn't include Earth flies? At least he was under the radar.

It was the first animal he could think of but not the best as the guards stormed the hallway. Beast Boy's equilibrium always seemed to be thrown off a little when he switched to the wide span of an insect's compound eyes. He hit a wall and started crawling when his flying wouldn't be at its best.

_Won't be so bad, _he tried convincing himself as he ran far away, several walls away from the angry voices. _Just can't be human for a while. Those suckers will never find me; I'd like to see them-_

Brooke's scream sent an icy wave of fear to the wing tips of his fly form. His feet forgot to stick and he plummeted from the wall. He fell but he didn't spare the time to turn himself right side up. Anger gave fire to his shapeshifting and before he knew it he was a panther taking down the nearest guard that stood in his way. A couple feral swipes from his paws cleared the doorway free of the rest.

Beast Boy was free to race down the hallway and now panic had begun to set in alongside the initial anger. Brooke hadn't been giving a "distraction" scream like her double had done so long ago in the café, not at all. With that knowledge, he sped up and bowled straight into the next group of guards before they could even turn to face him, knocking most to the ground.

The boy snarled and lowered himself in attack position. He knew that he was letting his animal instincts – the powerful things they were – take over, but he didn't care to stop them. His human form couldn't convey what the panther did – that feline wrath was exactly what anyone should know they were dealing with when they messed with his friends.

Now that their objective had presented itself, the guards got to their feet. They fanned out into a circle to seal him off. From their belts they each pulled sticks that expanded and crackled with unfriendly blue electricity. One guard to eager to impress stabbed his wand out only for Beast Boy to move his sleek, green neck and chomp down on the weapon. He wrestled it from the startled man's hands and threw the sparking end into another guard. Sounds from the stairs told that more were coming but the ones he was already stuck with were in his way. Where was…?

"Quite a little show we've got going on here…"

Beast Boy gave another snarl but, once he snapped to the direction of the voice, his cat eyes went wide and lost their deadly sheen. He was straight back to human to front an image the least threatening.

"I feel that I should have paid admission." The alien stepped into the circle when it parted for him. Under his unforgiving hold, Brooke would've been perfectly still if not for her shivering. A stun gun hovered directly over her ear – one fully-charged shot to the brain and…

"_Let her go!_" Beast Boy yelled when his mind wouldn't permit him to finish that horrible thought.

When Brooke opened squinted eyes there was a liquid film cast over them that hurt Beast Boy to see. Throughout her fear for her life, there was a flicker of confusion when she looked to him. "G…Gar?"

She was seeing him for what he really looked like for the first time and for that, for everything else, any reaction could only be stalled. She could only stare and wait for what was to happen.

"Not a very good place to hide the dead weight...Beast Boy, was it?" The alien's grip on the wand was steady over its victim and it was so close that Brooke's brown hair stuck up from the static. He then gave a nod to the over-clothes Beast Boy had left behind when he'd transformed. "I'll bet you're on one of those Justice teams; much too sloppy of a superhero to ever strike it out on your own."

It was a blow to his pride like it would be to anyone's but Beast Boy couldn't allow the anger to surface, not now. He choked it back behind clenched teeth, placed his hands to his head in surrender. "I give up. Just let her go."

"In a moment. Now march."

The guard who'd had his stun gun pulled away was also the first to unnecessarily push the boy to get moving. Being in the middle of the line did something to spare Beast Boy from the sight of Brooke being continually held at laser-point, when the slightest misstep could scorch her light complexion, but that position of his didn't spare his ears. He heard her start to sniff and didn't doubt that she could no longer hold back those tears.

They were marched to the lower levels of the building, levels they'd been denied access to before, but neither cared to take in any of the scenery when their fate was uncertain and they could do nothing to prevent it. A corner turned into a hallway that interconnected with a large dome-like building they'd only viewed in passing from the windows. It was there that there ceased to be any other people or sounds at all.

He found that he didn't much like hearing only the sound of their footsteps echoing off the walls of that long hallway.

He was again shoved through a doorway simply because the guards could. When the door shut behind, more than half of the guards retreated back to their other duties, making Beast Boy's sense of unease deepen. The gate that was the only feature of the plain black room reminded him of a ticket taker gate at the movies but it was probably asking too much for the hulking figure behind it to ask for his ID for an R-rated show.

"Another new one?" the alien growled through a fanged overbite. He gave a dismissing grunt. "Doesn't look like much, does he? What are the stats?"

No sooner than Beast Boy had begun to wonder over that and a metal collar was fastened over his neck. Not expecting it, he gave a tiny yelp and craned his head in effort to see and try to identify it.

"Junior member of Earth's Justice League," the man holding Brooke said. "Shapeshifter…not much else to say really." Where Brooke had gone limp in his arms just to be spared of any harm, she was then pushed away from him as if humans were something foul. The girl paced as if unsure of what to do when only just that morning things had been as fine as they could be under the circumstances.

Brooke's teary eyes met with Beast Boy's…but she was first to break contact. She couldn't take it and she was gone through the door.

He'd been pulling at the collar to try to glimpse it, resigned himself to the fact that it probably restricted his powers somehow, but his fingers sagged and dropped from that task. She wasn't used to the very real danger he and his friends dealt with on a daily basis. She'd only been associated with him, she'd just been a convenient bartering chip at the time, and it had led to her getting hurt. All the excuses and claims that he hadn't meant for it to happen couldn't wish away the fact that it was still his fault.

Beast Boy could barely be revived from that guilt that gnawed away at his conscious but his eyes flicked up on the hulking man's last remark.

"Welcome to the Games, kid. Let's see how long you survive."


	9. Chapter 9

The dark expanse of space was like a sheet of black, blackness so deep it stifled all sound. If the twinkling stars weren't spread across the sky to break up the color it would've been a very sobering sight indeed when their goal was a far way off. Then again, Raven's journal was in her pack, which had been strapped onto the back of the T-Ship. It wasn't the time to contemplate some good lines of dark poetry when she had no means to record it.

It took a small degree of effort to rake her eyes from that sight that for all she knew could have spanned into eternity. When she did, focused back in on her friends' voices over the com-link, Raven found them in the middle of conversation.

"Might we visit Tamaran on our return home from retrieving Beast Boy?" asked Starfire when she was less familiar with the neighboring planets of Earth. "I am most interested in seeing how it is thriving under new leadership."

"We'll see, Star," said Cyborg, punching in commands on his screen over the solar system they'd be visiting. "I don't know though. I'm not liking the reports about this system…gangsters, smugglers, it might be difficult getting the fuel we need. This place…you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious."

The jet coasted the skies for a minute in silence: fifty-eight seconds longer than it should've taken in a normal day until Robin got the Star Wars reference to Mos Eisley. It was meant to raise a little snicker but the time had passed for any such thing. Before any of them could start to get depressed again over the one person who would've gotten that joke instantly Raven spoke her first word since takeoff.

"You haven't fully explained to us the situation we're in, Robin," she said over the com-link. A glance to the space around them told that they had nothing but time on their hands. "I understand that there was little time before but now-"

"Yes, Robin," Starfire chimed in, distracted enough. "Please tell us how these events have come to pass."

The eye slits on Robin's mask narrowed a small degree as he piloted the jet but he couldn't give his full attention to driving when there was nothing like an asteroid field or the like to avoid. He'd messed up on the last mission, not once but twice. He'd misread the signs of the innocent party, was so assured of their guilt that he dismissed the odd behavior of the academy girls at the club. Worst yet, he'd lost his teammate right under his nose, and not because he was up to his neck fighting bad guys the way Batman was whenever he'd lost track of a rookie Robin. It was because he couldn't tell the difference between his friend, the things that made up his character, and a cheap copy of him.

_Some friend I am,_ Robin muttered bitterly in his thoughts and he could almost hear Batman saying that he was going to take him back to basic training…

But the Titans weren't Batman. They didn't expect nothing less than perfection the way the Bat did and what Robin expected of himself. Beast Boy was everyone's friend, not just his and they had the right to know even if it was a source of great shame for him. He felt another small shot of guilt when he realized that they shouldn't even have had to ask.

He gave a half-hearted sigh and began, "Academy students across the nation were being replaced with replicas in order to gain access to their powerful parents. They were going to tap into those resources and use the replaced subjects to launch an attack when Gotham was vulnerable without Batman there to protect it. Batgirl does all right on her own but it just would've been too much for one person to handle."

"Only if that one person wasn't _the Batman_, man." If a guy could ever swoon like the girls in old-fashioned movies then Cyborg did the closest thing to it. "Star, Rae, you guys _see_ what this guy's done? Smilex gas epidemic, kryptonite asteroid, is there anything he can't-?"

"_Anyway_," Robin cut in with a little irritation. He could never seem to bring up the name without an overabundance of living legend worship. "We'd thought things had calmed down. But we were wrong. Something happened when we separated to check out Cherrywood Academy. Beast Boy should be in the same place as those missing girls."

Raven nodded. "Were you able to find any further information from those boys you questioned? You already know on our end that the droid that replaced Beast Boy destroyed anything that could've been of aid to us."

"They didn't know anything."

"Can you be sure?" Raven pressed. "You haven't spoken very highly of them from what we've heard."

"I can field that one," Cyborg cut in before Robin could reply. "They may have been big jocks but you can tell they didn't really have the spines to do anything more than gambling in _that_ city. Even if it wasn't written all over their faces during that interrogation, my sensors confirmed that what we heard was the truth. Still, I would've liked to do a little more investigating around the campus."

"The droid didn't think to relieve Beast Boy of his communicator," said Robin, back to business now that the heat was off him. "He still has it and we'll be able to pick up its frequency when we've pinpointed the planet he's on."

Raven fingered over the on-screen readings. "There _are_ only five planets in this system."

"Yeah, but what if B loses it or it's been confiscated or something?" Cyborg had to mention. "Then what? Are we supposed to separate and pick through each planet with a fine-toothed comb for him? Meet back up on the fifth one in a few years?"

"He'll know how important it is to hold onto his communicator," Robin insisted, having at least that much faith in his friend. After all, Beast Boy had only just lost one of his uniforms in the academy for not concealing it better. He knew. "If worse comes to worse, we have Raven. She found him before, she can find him again."

"I'm not so sure that I can," Raven's voice crackled over the com-link.

"Oh, but I am sure that you will be able to, friend Raven," Starfire pitched in for a vote of confidence when she thus far had been unable to contribute.

"It's not that _my_ powers are lacking in this," she explained when the others were about to give similar support. "It's that _your_ capacity for mental links haven't been well exercised. My link to him was weak with the distance and it didn't last long. I'm not sure that I can reestablish it."

"He'll hold onto his communicator," Robin insisted again and he unconsciously gripped his own that laid in his utility belt.

Silence followed for a few moments until Cyborg gave a half-hearted reply in the subject he already knew had lost. "We still could've investigated the schools a little to know what we're getting into before we just plunged in. You know that group of girls you two saved were prisoners longer than those two guys. They might have known more."

"We could have looked further into this operation on the Bat-Computer," Raven said, though they'd gone too far to turn back to Earth now.

Robin's voice became threaded with a strange tone. "And we could have hacked into _surveillance videos_?"

"Yeah, man, why not?" Cyborg said, a little cheerier as if Robin was reconsidering. But he stopped when Starfire gave a little yip and he too realized the true meaning of Robin's question. "Uh…you mean _that_ video?"

"_Yes_," Robin growled into the speaker, "_that_ one."

"But…but the villain of red and black spoke of it and it was so very interesting to imagine a small Robin new to the duties of truth and righteousness. And…and…" Starfire stalled when her excuses were running dry. "And Cyborg was at fault for locating the file! I tried to avert my eyes but-"

"But you watched it just the same as us, Star!" finished Cyborg when she was just as guilty as he. "Aw come on, Rob, it's just some dumb home video. It's not like you were as bad as Titans East your first couple times."

"Yes, yes!" Starfire joined in, eager to explain away their guilt on the matter. "You would have noticed that we had been um…laughing, but this I assure you was _not_ in jest of Small Robin, it-"

"It kinda was," Raven said when it seemed no excuse would sound genuine and neither of her co-conspirators could switch off her com-link in time. "I mean…seeing you like _that_…" Raven stalled as she spoke. Pink brushed over her grey face with the images of the video and she had no choice but look away when their leader threw an irritated look her way.

When Raven made her true feelings known the others seemed to take the notion that there would be no getting away with it. Cyborg and Starfire switched off their com-links but they need not have bothered when they got out all of that laughter in their individual pods. Glaring into the darkness of space, Robin waited until they were fit enough to talk again.

"Hah hah, it was so cool seeing you as a little squirt like that!" Cyborg blurt out between breathes. "I thought Harley was lying about that footage, I really did, I mean I just had to check it out! And I did! And it was great!"

"You were most precious when you were small," Starfire beamed. "Just as sweet as my dear little bungorf, Silkie."

"Yeah, and then there was that part when you were all like "Holy Hole in a Doughnut, Batman! What happened?" " Cyborg elaborated when all of them fully knew that no such thing had happened.

"Throwing that box on that goon when you didn't have your belt…" Raven mumbled into her shoulder, unable to not join in just a little.

"By the Stars of Orion would you infernal teenagers just shut up already!?" Beast Boy's voice yelled over the com-link and it took them all a second to remember that it wasn't actually him. Nothing could possess their friend to talk like that. The droid's head had actually gotten so fed up with all the noise that he'd dragged himself to the button with only with his metal tongue.

And all of the droid's work had been for nothing. Each Titan dialed their off button synonymous with the others.

With the droid's interruption, talk of the hacked surveillance video also came to an abrupt halt, though snickers still crackled over the wavelengths. Not since it had begun had Robin spoken a word over it. He'd remained silent that whole time to absorb all that his friends said and now that it was through did he make his thoughts known.

"This is a disciplinary issue," he said into his mic and the snickering was soon replaced with grumbling. "Your assignment was to locate Beast Boy and I found you all goofing off when I returned to the cave. That computer is state-of-the-art and is intended for investigation; analysis of forensic, chemical, and voice signatures; and weapons development. _Not_ YouTube."

"You had us stuffed up in that creepy cave all day," Cyborg griped. As if the coldness of that cave didn't chill what parts of him were still human, the shadows cast over the criminal memorabilia of the mechanical T-Rex, the sinisterly smiling giant Joker card, and the vampire shroud looked as if they were waiting to spring back to life. "That stuff might be Raven's dig but the rest of us need a little sunlight and-"

"Have I been too soft on all of you?"

"_NO!_" They all fired back into their speakers. Each and every one of their weekly training regimens was full and catered to their specific abilities and their best was never enough when their limits could always be pushed further. There was always the looming presence of the adult leagues, always the issue of measuring up, but it was just asking too much to have to hold themselves to the same strict standards that Robin expected of himself.

A collective shudder seemed to pass between the pods at the thought of getting up at 5am every day to train.

From his pod Robin gave a smirk of satisfaction when that threat was all it took to get his teammates in line. But that wasn't enough, not when they had uncovered such an embarrassing piece of information from his rookie days and shared it with every Titan on the planet.

"You know…" he said and the others tensed slightly as he drew his voice out. "You guys _really_ shouldn't have done what you did."

His ominous tone told tales that any one punishment they could think of would be child's play to what he had in mind.

"So we're sorry already!" Cyborg answered as if that would erase the deed. "Super sorry, all right?"

"This means of course that I'm going to have to dig up some dirt on each-one-of-you," he said and he didn't need to look to feel the tension come off in waves from the other pods. "Voice cracking? Awkward phases? I'm sure you haven't forgotten my guardian is a master detective and that he passed that onto me. And do you want to know the best part?"

Robin was well aware that that was the part they wanted to know least and he continued, "You'll _never_ know when I'll strike."

The chuckles that became grumbles turned into nervous silence. Raven could look nowhere but the stars and it showed fully in Starfire when she bit her lip and crunched her hands over her knees. Cyborg stiffly piloted the craft like he was more machine than man but his mouth spread wide in a grimace.

Having a little more power over them than usual was the first positive Robin had had in a couple days and he reclined his seat a little with a self satisfied smirk.

* * *

As soon as the heavy door slammed behind him and he didn't have to behave anymore, Beast Boy yanked at the collar around his neck with such force that he nearly toppled himself over. His feet paced in all directions as he tried for any slack in the device's design. Turning into a hippopotamus might have shattered it and a hamster might've allowed him to slip out from under it but his powers wouldn't let take the form of anything other than a little green boy.

The clearance under the door seemed to mock him when he couldn't slip under it as a rodent. Glaring at it, Beast Boy sunk down to one of the benches and kept tugging at the collar anyway out of spite. It should've been a simple enough thing to just not get caught until his friends came to get him but there he was among hordes of other aliens awaiting whatever these "games" were.

"You know," a gruff but unmistakably female voice drifted in from somewhere, "I make a point of familiarizing myself with the junior leagues. Recognize the face but…hmm, could you help me out on this one, kid?"

"Uh…" Beast Boy looked to either side of him to seek out the owner but the space seemed to swarm with only the large-set muscular types. Just looking around caused one of them to glower and bare saber-tooth teeth in his direction. With a squeak, Beast Boy cut the searching and took on the stance of a tin soldier. He'd done combat training with Robin, the only non-super in their team, for this very instance of finding himself without his powers but he somehow didn't want to test the David vs. many, many Goliaths theory if it wasn't required.

He carefully moved his eyes in either direction so he'd attract little notice. He waited for the voice again.

"You're a fidgety little thing, aren't you?" The woman sat down beside him. If he hadn't known who she was than Beast Boy could've easily deduced as much from her appearance: feathery brown wings tucked in from the enclosed space and a smart bird-like cowl wrapped around long red hair.

"Hey, you, you're-!" Beast Boy blurted out, caught up in the exciting moment of meeting another top Justice League member. He caught himself and cast a suspicious glance around to the other prisoners, who he only just realized were sparring and working out in a makeshift gym.

"It's all right to name names here, kid," Hawkgirl said with a little amusement for his reaction. "I mean, I'm sure we'd all be enemies outside these walls but inside we're all just the same prisoner. We're all battled out enough as is without starting up any private spats. Plus…" She took a moment to send the piercing eye of a bird of prey right back at the large alien that had done as much to Beast Boy. Even a man of his girth looked a little shaken. "Although they could easily swarm us," The composure Beast Boy had been slowly regaining took another hit. "Tear us apart like paper dolls like each of them so dearly wants to," Not entirely inconsiderate, Hawkgirl took notice when his face twitched despise the rest of him being determined to stay strong. "Not one of them would ever dare."

The conviction in her voice made his shoulders not so stiff. "Why not? Aren't we vulnerable right now?"

"Because the big boss in charge of all of this doesn't give one whit for any of us. He enjoys seeing new and interesting Supers in the arena and if anyone takes that away, well, I expect we wouldn't see them again." She looked off without really looking at anything in particular but she still felt those admiring eyes on her and sighed. "All right, go ahead and ask it then, kid."

"It's Beast Boy, Ms. Hawkgirl."

"I don't know how many times I have to request _civilians_ not to use the "Miss". You're a Super so please refrain."

"Oh…yeah okay." Maybe it was just the particular Supers he met that repeatedly told him to nix the titles that came naturally to him. He somehow didn't see heroes like Green Arrow or The Flash turning up their noses at a little hero worship. "So…uh, how did _you_ get caught? I mean, I can see _me_ getting caught but-"

"I miscalculated," she said simply without too much shame. "All of us do at some point. I'm just biding my time to figure this one out without sustaining an overt amount of damage on the way out. Is it sad that this is the closest thing I've had to a vacation in two years?" Hawkgirl didn't wait for what would be an uncomfortable reply. "I'm not going to lie by telling you we're in a good situation right now, Beast Boy."

"It's not like my job is all sunshine and rainbows," the boy grumbled into his hand, with the very vivid image of how Brooke had run away with such fear in her eyes. "What are we in for here?"

"The role of a gladiator," Hawkgirl said as if she were speaking to any adult Justice member. "In a death-match that never ends until you're so beaten down that you can't stand. Stay with me and we may be able to stick it out a little longer until my partner tracks me down. On that note, do you happen to have a communicator?"

"I hid it in my room," Beast Boy said. "Galaxy-wise it's a bit short-ranged but if your partner's somewhere on the same planet…"

"Good, good, mine was confiscated," she carried on as if already she was forming a plan with the new sources. "We're not the ones in control right now so just keep it down and play it safe. No need to tempt anyone here into…"

But when Hawkgirl looked again the boy was halfway across the room, marching straight up to the alien that had given him a dirty look. Beast Boy didn't need anyone else fighting his battles for him and, truth be told, after what he had put Brooke through taking out his anger on someone who had already singled him out first sounded like a capital idea.

"I don't have a glove to kick off a duel right, Tiny, but-" Beast Boy stomped on the alien-beast's rather sensitive-looking toes as Hawkgirl looked on in irksome disbelief. "You're on like Donkey Kong! See you from the winner's circle!"

The alien grabbed his foot and howled in pain. The boy that could've been a mouse amongst the hulking monsters all around strode proudly from the room to the arena like the Titan he was. No one seemed to want to get into that space but him so he was first in line and the door slid open for him. The alien-beast had to turn crouch and turn himself sideways just to fit through the door but only they were permitted entry.

Though she was running after him, the door slammed shut right before Hawkgirl's worried face.

Beast Boy didn't turn to spare her a look though he was sure she'd been going after him. The dome somehow felt even more immense from the inside, like several Titan's Towers could've been stacked one atop the other and still have not reached the top. And there were spectators, all the lowest and vilest that the galaxy had to offer, filling up every seat available. They spilt out from the lips of the walls above, cheering, and cried for blood. And not the blood from their brother that was Beast Boy's opponent.

"Everybody's against me I take it?" he asked when he actually had to dodge a dislodged chair. Beast Boy gazed around the general admittance until he came to the box seat where the ruler of the palace waited with anticipation of what he and all others assumed would be a one hit K.O. fight.

From across the dirt ground the alien-beast took a wide stance. Dreads curled around his temples from a balding head and his flesh was bound in splotchy purple and horns that stuck out from odd places. He brought down a leg the girth of a tree trunk and the ground shook like the first fissure from an impending earthquake. The crowd's cheers grew.

Beast Boy took on the same stance, did the same thing just for the formality of it when his weight didn't shift even a pebble from the ground. As soon as he'd entered the arena he'd felt a certain warm but otherwise indescribable feeling return to his chest.

His shapeshifting had returned and he was more than ready to use it.


	10. Chapter 10

Funny, I went out of order and did the second scene first because it was cute – don't usually do that. Had that part finished for a while and was procrastinating writing the fight scene for too long. Oh wells. :D Read and review!

Arual-san

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Just as soon as he was done doing the ground stomping tradition Beast Boy straightened into a most casual stance. He set an arm akimbo and waited as his mammoth opponent played himself up to the crowd. The alien flexed muscles engorged to the point of popping a couple veins and he gave a mighty roar that vibrated through every occupant's ribcage, which the crowd ate up with relish. The muscled beast went on several seconds longer than he needed to but when he was through he again took in puny earthling that had stomped on his foot. He closed in within inches of the boy's face and let loose another terrible roar.

The force of that roar alone made Beast Boy sway the other way but he kept himself upright. When it was over with he pulled forward from the position, in that same second shifting form to that of a velociraptor.

His opponent wasn't so confident when a sharp row of teeth closed over the hand with which he beckoned to the crowd. In that deadly lizard form that was made for combat Beast Boy unclamped his teeth and ducked when the other hand came swinging round in reflex. Now that his opponent knew he meant business he reared back and paced the ground in the circle.

Beast Boy's dagger-like feet clicked along the dirt ground as he waited for an opening. With his opponent's great girth it was almost a sure thing that he couldn't be the fastest of the combatants but one blow from one of those dinner plate-sized fists could make the entire fight slide downhill for Beast Boy fast. There weren't any teammates to rely on for those few precious minutes of recovery time needed.

The demeaning words of the alien that had held Brooke hostage came back to him, words that he was sloppy and that he could never strike it out on his own. In effort to prove otherwise to himself, Beast Boy was the first to strike when his opponent took a long stride and compromised his strong stance. He lowered his head and charged but then a sudden idea flashed in his mind. The boy gave a toothy grin and changed into a pachycephalosaurus, what he only knew as the head-butting dinosaurs.

The beast's muscled chest might've fooled Beast Boy's brain into thinking he'd missed and hit the wall instead but he kept at it. His opponent skid back several feet from the blow but stopped short of hitting the back wall.

Once they came to a stop Beast Boy knew he had to move but the pachycephalosaurus was the less speedy of the two dinosaurs. Two great hands closed around him with the pressure of a car compactor, crushing his ribs so that he went back to human out of reflex. It was all he could think about for a few agonizing seconds, that horrible squeezing pain that could destroy him. He just needed one thought away from that, one form to pop into his head before he met a grisly fate, and then it came to him. Instinct made him struggle uselessly to loosen those hands and so he used another instinct against his opponent: the one to startle back when a venomous pit viper lashes out at one's face.

His opponent dropped him with a frightened growl unbecoming of his threatening appearance and the air became dense with boos from the crowd. With its dripping fangs, the snake form could've easily kept the beast cowering in place. Bringing the fight to an end like that would've been fine in another situation when Starfire or Cyborg could've clapped restraints on a temporarily petrified opponent. Not only would that not work now but also if the fight was to end in such a way it would be a let down to both crowd and king.

If the crowd had thrown a chair at him for just being a League member on a disreputable planet Beast Boy didn't want to think about what they'd do him if he made the whole lot of them angry.

While his opponent was stalled, Beast Boy grew from a couple inches tall to several feet and he kicked a pair of long feet into the beast's chest. If the beast's roar had vibrated through the spectator's bodies then the force of his fall sent them jolting up an inch from their seats. When his opponent was down Beast Boy did what a kangaroo did best and jumped on him with the hope that enough hits would make him _stay_ down. Every part of the beast seemed to be carved from stone but he kept at it, determined to either find a weak spot or _make_ one.

The long kangaroo tail that was supposed to act as balance became the perfect thing for the beast to grab a hold of before he could take another hit. Though he crouched like he was hurt, the beast took great pleasure in swinging the green kangaroo in winding circles at speeds that soon became sickening. And he didn't wait so long for Beast Boy to think of his next form to take before he ended the momentum by slamming him hard into the ground.

The boy gave a low moan in kangaroo tongue but he couldn't pay a concern to his whole aching left half when the whole weight of the beast coming down on him could cripple him. He changed to human just so that he could roll out of the way.

Heavily leaning on his good side, Beast Boy limped away to get a breather but not fast enough. A hand closed over his bad foot. When he was in human form he was easily the weaker opponent and he stayed human when his opponent lifted him like he weighed nothing and hurled him across the stadium.

It didn't seem unheard of for a combatant to be thrown into the crowd's midst like a fly ball and so Beast Boy didn't get a soft landing into the laps of his un-adoring fans. They cleared the space and he crashed into their seats instead. He could barely breathe, barely think, before their jeering voices and foreign hands closed in and he was thrown unceremoniously back into the ring.

A feeling of panic tingled through the boy's spine when everything hurt, when he couldn't see without a hint of blurriness and when great, stomping footsteps were closing in. That panic set in and constricted over his chest when he felt himself lifted up off his feet.

Beast Boy couldn't make himself look but his other senses betrayed him in that he could feel the alien-beast's hot, pungent breath against his neck and hear its unintelligent grumbles of laughter. A victory wasn't a victory to the likes of him unless it was to the finish.

"_Is this where it all ends?"_ a little voice chimed from somewhere inside Beast Boy's head. He growled inwardly when that snarky voice was in _his_ voice, a part of himself. What did his subconscious know when it couldn't feel the pain of his every inhale?

But it continued, _"Are you really going to go down to some no-name lowlife in the middle of nowhere? Will you let your friends keep searching the galaxy forever for whatever is left of you after this?"_

"Hmmph…" he huffed to himself like an afterthought when again he started to feel the same crushing feeling he'd felt before. "Wouldn't be very nice…" he said between strained efforts to breathe, "to make them come all the way…out here…for nothing."

Beast Boy couldn't look before when he'd had doubts but he drew his head up then to glare at his enemy full in the face even as he was being slowly crushed. He crunched his teeth back into a smile and suddenly those great hands closed over nothing…seemingly nothing until the beast felt a tiny weight inside the hollow space between his palms.

Before the beast could compensate for the new empty space and destroy whatever tiny creature lay inside the color green seemed to explode in every direction. Beast Boy's opponent was blown back to the ground and with one well-placed stomp from his elephant form's front legs he didn't get back up again.

Back in human form, Beast Boy collapsed onto his hands and knees to take the biggest inhale his lungs could take. His only thought was to get his breathing under control as meanwhile the crowd sounded conflicted between cheering and booing.

He was granted a full minute of recovery time before the sliding sound of the door he'd entered from sounded from every end of the circle. In his disbelief, his head came up so fast it nearly snapped.

Eight more opponents entered the arena and every set of eyes was focused to where Beast Boy, a weakened opponent, knelt in the center…every set of eyes save the one of a tall reptilian alien that stared off into space. Beast Boy saw with relief the reason when a hand came out from behind the unconscious alien and tossed him aside: Hawkgirl had snuck into that match.

"Still alive, I see?" Hawkgirl asked, flying to the boy's side and facing away from him back to back.

"Thought you…said…they didn't gang up on us," Beast Boy breathed with a little irritation as he tried to steady himself.

"They don't _off-site_ but as long as it entertains the big man in charge," – she gave a jerk of the head to where the king looked on in excitement – "anything goes. I'm sure they all know that being here is a guaranteed death sentence regardless but, you know…"

"It'd be something to…brag about…to their buddies in the…next life."

"There you go," Hawkgirl nodded in approval when enemies were closing in on all sides. "It would be best next time to let a person finish the guidelines of a place before you go venting your feelings in a less than appropriate way."

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled when he knew she was right. "I got the ugly one."

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When the sun was swallowed up by the sand dunes beyond the glass dome ceiling and the ruler had at last had his fill of violence for that day even a lumpy strip of mattress slapped on a plank of wood sounded like a dream after hours of endless fighting. Beast Boy was out before he'd even hit the surface, sinking into it like a boneless mass of green Jello was the only form he could take.

"Better perk up there, kid," Hawkgirl's voice drifted in the air of the pitch dark of the cell.

Beast Boy groaned, nearly mock-cried from where he laid splayed out on the mattress. The few hours of sleep he'd gotten in had passed like only a few seconds to his overworked body. He didn't think he could coax his smallest muscle into moving.

"It looks like you have a visitor."

Suddenly it was as if his head weighed as little as Raven always said it did and he lifted it without a problem. Beast Boy saw the upside down image of a young brunette drawing nearer to the cell door. His body gave a spasm of energy at the sight which flipped him from his bed like an egg from a pan.

Anxious to recover from the less than smooth move, he forgot to be tired and scrambled up to the bars.

"Hey, Brooke." He tried to stand the cool way Robin would after taking down a bad guy in blaze of fiery glory but a tired leg muscle winced in the position and the look was for naught. "So umm…how's it going? Any interesting uh…sick people?"

The girl had since loosely gripped hold of her upper arm and rubbed it absentmindedly. She couldn't quite lock her eyes with his.

"Brooke…? What's wrong?"

"I…" she started like her mind was fighting against her mouth to voice the words. "I shouldn't have run away back then. I've never been held h-hostage before and I…I panicked…I…"

"Hey," he softened his tone in empathy, "that's just that survival instinct kicking in."

"More like _coward's_ instinct," Brooke murmured, not about to let him reason away the guilt she was feeling when she felt it hadn't plagued her long enough. "I shouldn't have just abandoned you like that, not when they were searching for you, when they could've done something bad to you. I…I shouldn't have just run away to save myself. I'm sorry."

"Like I said: _instinct_," Beast Boy repeated, getting back to what he still stood by. "Besides it's not like you could've fought back anyway." The girl's eyebrow gave an unconscious jump at that. But she gave no other reaction so he moved his hand over hers: the only part of her he could reach. "I'm really not much for keeping grudges, so why don't we just forget about it, okay?"

When her eyes could only look anywhere else before, Brooke now guided them with some hesitance to the hand that laid over hers and the green skin that contrasted so greatly from her pale peach skin. She lifted her eyes from there up to his face. She trailed her eyes over that face purposefully, taking in not only the unusual color but also the pointed tips on his teeth and ears that branded him as no normal definition of human. "Is this what you really look like?"

"What you saw before, _that_ was the illusion," he said with a little more purpose now that she had made eye contact. "I didn't mean to lie to you but, _you_ know. Are you…all right with this?"

Brooke startled back like the question was a bee sting. "I…y-yes! I mean, I'm a bit surprised but as you know I – I live in a well-known, villain-infested place like Gotham City and I see strange things all the time. Not that…umm _you're_ strange but umm…I…"

She'd cornered herself somewhere that she hadn't wanted to go and wasn't sure she could escape from.

"S'okay," Beast Boy waved off easily, saving her from that uncomfortable rut. He pulled back his hands to send a critical look to the rings on his fingers. "Really isn't a point in starting up that illusion again though when the batteries will die out in a few seconds. Until my friends get here you'll just have to not to get sick up in that infirmary and I'll have to be careful not to-" – he caught himself from saying "die" when she could've taken the quip literally – "uh, get any more bumps and bruises."

"Speaking of which," And Brooke pulled back the arm he'd previously laid atop hers. She flipped it onto its underside and to the cut that Beast Boy couldn't have hoped to hide from a nurse-in-training. She frowned and went for the pack on her belt. It wasn't just a habit to relieve her personal tension on a wound that didn't need such attention like it had been on the tiny puncture wound he'd given himself on their first meeting. That larger wound needed attention beyond the cleansing of the dirty water the holding cells provided. She set to treating it but not bandaging anywhere out in the open where the guards could see.

"So the guards called you…Beast Boy?" Brooke branched out when her curiosity was stronger than her shyness.

The grin he tried to crack came out more like a grimace when she applied the stinging alcohol rub. "Yeah, that's me. Packs a little more punch than Gar, doesn't it?"

"Then…are you some type of mutant?" she said when she wasn't sure of how to proceed and what would be offensive. Gotham may have overrun with the usual criminally insane but it didn't mean that the Dark Knight didn't get thrown a few Supers now and again. "Were you possibly…" Brooke struggled over, trying to make sense of it from what she knew of superhero lore, "a chameleon that was injected with…radioactive ooze infused with human DNA…and the color-shifting somehow crossed over to shapeshifting and…?"

At the very idea one of Beast Boy's eyes squinted into a slit of its normal width and kept twitching. His ears couldn't spare his dignity and tune out the sound of Hawkgirl trying to stifle her snickers into her pillow.

"_No!_" he said back with a little more force than he'd meant. "That's ridiculous! I'm not some human-hybrid mad scientist experiment gone wrong, okay? It was nothing like that! What happened was…was…" No sooner than Beast Boy had let himself get carried away in a passion about the real origin of his superpowers did he realize that the truth was no less ridiculous than the tale Brooke had cooked up. Some rabid monkey that had no earthly business being green……

"Uhh…how about an asteroid?" But it was more like Beast Boy was offering a suggestion than an explanation. "_Yeeeeah_…there was this was this ginormous asteroid like the size of Delaware that had all this cosmic-infused super energy stuff inside and it hit me dead on, pow! But I rose from the smothering ashes reborn and-"

Stifled noises that sounded suspiciously like laughter hissed out between Brooke's teeth. She tried to smother it into her shoulder when she noticed that Beast Boy didn't continue because of it but then Hawkgirl huffed from the background, "Did I ever mention that _I_ was born from a chicken egg hatched under a human?"

The boy turned back to his cellmate but he couldn't make a cutthroat gesture, shake his head, or otherwise outright tell her to stop cramping his style when Brooke would see. Beast Boy could play the superhero card once. That one time was all it took to lay down where he laid on the scale between the big name powerhouse heroes and the wannabes that could barely make the list.

The face he ended up making to Hawkgirl was more like asking a favor than anything else.

She gave a half-hearted sigh and made the most minimal effort to close her eyes and feign sleep.

"That uh…wasn't supposed to be funny but whatever," Beast Boy said as Brooke moved onto another injury. "Anyway," he started, puffing up his voice, "I'm a part of this totally sweet team called the Teen Titans, fighting bad guys, saving the world, and – and-" But right in the middle of his thought it was suddenly like he was seeing Brooke for the first time. "And how on earth did you get _in here_ anyway? Seriously? I know they don't bother with guards but to get this deep into the cells you would've had to have gotten through at least three sets of bars just like these. How did you-?"

"All finished!" she stated with a little fake cheer, patting the boy's newly bandaged ankle and making him yelp. Brooke overlooked both his question and his head to Hawkgirl. "Shall I patch you up as well, ma'am?"

Though her eyes were closed, Hawkgirl wasn't close to sleep when the two were still talking. "I'd rather not get up right now after today unless it's absolutely necessary. You can just leave the supplies here and I'll find somewhere to hide them later."

How Brooke had managed to get in so deep into the cells by herself was still a nagging concern but Beast Boy pushed it aside when only one word in Hawkgirl's reply registered in his brain: hide…hidden…his communicator was still safely hidden back up in his former quarters up above and still very functional. Though Hawkgirl was proud, he could see the toll that the endless fighting was taking on her. The same applied to him too. It was just asking too much of any one person to stay in those games for very long, enough for him to consider a possibly more dangerous option.

"Brooke," Beast Boy said to her, coming to a decision in that moment, "if you're so good at sneaking around then it should be a pinch for you to get into the guy's quarters. I need you to get my communicator for me. It's yellow and as big as your palm. I've got a bottom bunk, row six, number twenty-one…twenty-seven…ugh…well it's the empty one and it's hidden under the mattress."

"Well, okay. But you can't possibly get any reception…"

"Not in _this_ building anyway."

"Wait, do you mean…?" But Brooke didn't need him to say the words when everything in his face confirmed it as true. "Oh, oh, we're escaping now, aren't we?"

"Good on you, kids," Hawkgirl contributed from the background. "I figured we'd have to give it a shot sometime soon. Better to make an attempt when the odds are stacked against us instead of holding out to the point where we've become too weak to fight."

"Then you'll need some sort of distraction, right?" Brooke continued on when she had a position in another part of the palace that they did not. "Umm…how do I go about starting a riot, Beast Boy?"

He was plenty ready for that and winked. "By doing _everything_ your professors, nannies, and butlers ever told you not to do."

Brooke gave a delighted clap of her hands just at the thought of being able to do things far worse than her usual mischief of blowing bubbles in her chocolate milk at the dinner table. She wasn't quite sure how to get into real trouble but the cogs would be rolling in her dreams all of that night.

"I'll do what I can on this side and try to meet up with you at that place where I hid you with the vase." Beast Boy lowered his voice when he thought he heard someone from a neighboring cell toss in their sleep. "No promises though. Supers might be favorites for the ruler here but after this I don't know. A lot of this is probably going to come down to luck."

Brooke had been a little giddy on her knees in excitement but that came to a halt. "You might not be able to meet me at the rendezvous point? What about Benji and Hawkgirl?"

"It's all about luck." And the soberness that overtook his voice was direr than hers. He knew plenty from experience how badly a simple plan could go astray and make things worse off than they were before.

Brooke bit her lip as if in thought. She gave a slight shake of the head as if deciding something. "Then…" she said quietly, leaning in closer to the bars, "I'll just have to give you a little extra luck."

Before she could lose her nerve, before he could tell what she was thinking, Brooke turned the boy's head to a side and planted a kiss on his cheek. It only lasted a couple seconds but when she pulled back she was blushing.

"See you tomorrow then, Beast Boy," the girl stammered, though she also smiled at the same time. After brushing imaginary dust from her skirt to spend some nervousness, Brooke was quick to get onto her feet and march to the exit. And for his part, Beast Boy fell back on his palms from where he sat on the floor, a little shell shocked. The ghost of that kiss still burnt warm on his cheek and, as he reached up to touch it, he found his lips drawing up to his ears in a dopey smile.

If ever a person could bottle luck, a kiss from a pretty girl had to be part of the formula.


End file.
